Heading into the FIBA World Cup, the Team USA was considered the favorite to win, even though many anticipated Canada and a few other countries to be threats to win it all.

Unfortunately for Team USA, the competition in the FIBA World Cup turned out to be much better than expected, with Germany, Lithuania, and Canada beating the Americans during the tournament, resulting in Steve Kerr’s squad coming home empty-handed.

With Team USA finishing fourth, there’s been a lot of talk about other countries around the world finally catching up to and surpassing the United States in the sport of basketball.

Along with the Americans struggling in this tournament and failing to finish in the top three, the NBA today is dominated by international players, with arguably most of the elite players in the league being from other countries, like Giannis Antetokounmpo, Luka Doncic, Nikola Jokic, and Joel Embiid.

This has created quite a debate and has also motivated superstars like LeBron James to want to compete in the 2024 Olympics, but some still aren’t convinced that the rest of the world has caught up to the United States, like former Boston Celtics star Paul Pierce, via Showtime Basketball.

The rest of the world is catching up to America when it comes to producing top tier talent.@KevinGarnett5KG and @paulpierce34 weigh in on the international influx of stars.

Watch all episodes of KG Certified and Ticket and The Truth on our YouTube. pic.twitter.com/0mwedNahDa

— SHOWTIME Basketball (@shobasketball) September 14, 2023

Pierce believes that overall, America still has the best players in the world, but Kevin Garnett sees how things have changed with the NBA’s elite players now being from overseas.

Things are changing rapidly in the NBA, with the LeBron era dying out, and as Garnett puts it, the young players aren’t on the same level.

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