There’s concern for the chemistry of the USA men’s basketball team after a video emerged from Paris of Joel Embiid giving a dirty look to veteran leaders LeBron James and Kevin Durant.
Watch Embiid glare at LeBron and KD
With Team USA into the knockout stages and three wins away from a gold medal at the 2024 Olympic Games, now is not the time for any internal conflict, especially between its most important players.
“Y’all gotta peep Embiid’s energy,” said TikTok creator Sergio Donte, narrating the video of the Olympic team traveling together in France. “You ain’t gotta be full of disgust. It’s Bron, bro.”
“And then peep how he do KD,” he continued. “He’s side eyeing. Like, what’s wrong Embiid?“
Why was Embiid upset?
The TikTok comments were full of conspiracies about the cause of Embiid’s disgruntled look. They ranged from frustration with his playing time to “his knees just hurt.” Or maybe he wasn’t invited when the basketball team made friends with the American table tennis squad.
Another theory was that he was noticing how “fried” his teammates were, as they enjoyed some libations on their off day. Stephen Curry , the third key veteran leader in the team, seemed to notice KD and LeBron‘s giggly behavior as well. It wasn’t too different from when LeBron drank too much wine at a volleyball event and did a tipsy “dad dance” that went viral.
Hopefully, the interaction was nothing more than these grown men NBA stars goofing around in public. But with the talent and egos involved on this new edition of the Dream Team, you never know when the chemistry could all start to crumble.