{"id":620441,"date":"2026-02-23T19:30:15","date_gmt":"2026-02-23T19:30:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/620441\/"},"modified":"2026-02-23T19:30:15","modified_gmt":"2026-02-23T19:30:15","slug":"hell-yeah-i-want-to-play","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/620441\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Hell yeah, I want to play\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__TextBase-sc-1fnzlkn-3 bYFsJw cuqaEv article-text\">The most decorated men\u2019s basketball player in Team USA history has announced his plans to return for the 2028 Summer Olympic Games.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__TextBase-sc-1fnzlkn-3 bYFsJw cuqaEv article-text\">In <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/nba\/story\/_\/id\/48014969\/kevin-durant-says-plans-play-2028-olympics-los-angeles\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/nba\/story\/_\/id\/48014969\/kevin-durant-says-plans-play-2028-olympics-los-angeles\">a report by ESPN NBA Senior Writer Vincent Goodwill,<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.click2houston.com\/topic\/Houston_Rockets\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.click2houston.com\/topic\/Houston_Rockets\/\">Houston Rockets<\/a> star forward <a href=\"https:\/\/www.click2houston.com\/topic\/Kevin_Durant\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.click2houston.com\/topic\/Kevin_Durant\/\">Kevin Durant<\/a> confirmed he is planning to return to suit up for host Team USA in Los Angeles.<\/p>\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Kevin Durant plans on returning to 2028 Olympics, hates the narrative on American basketball. He tells ESPN: \u201c&#8221;It&#8217;s a lot of bulls&#8212; with that. I can read between the lines on that; it&#8217;s a shot at Black Americans.\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/35LdTLOSOD\" rel=\"nofollow\">https:\/\/t.co\/35LdTLOSOD<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Vincent Goodwill (@VinceGoodwill) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/VinceGoodwill\/status\/2025992512511398291?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">February 23, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__TextBase-sc-1fnzlkn-3 bYFsJw cuqaEv article-text\">Durant stands alone as the only men\u2019s basketball player with four Olympic gold medals in history. He won gold in each of the last four Summer Games: London (2012), Rio de Janeiro (2016), Tokyo (2020), and Paris (2024).<\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__TextBase-sc-1fnzlkn-3 bYFsJw cuqaEv article-text\">Only two other men\u2019s basketball players have won three gold medals: Carmelo Anthony and LeBron James. Diana Taurasi holds the women\u2019s record with six gold medals.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__TextBase-sc-1fnzlkn-3 bYFsJw cuqaEv article-text\">KD hasn\u2019t just contributed for the U.S. in the Olympics \u2014 he\u2019s often led the way. He has been Team USA\u2019s leading scorer in three of his four appearances.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__TextBase-sc-1fnzlkn-3 bYFsJw cuqaEv article-text\">He also owns nine Olympic records in men\u2019s basketball, including total points (518), total rebounds (137), and highest scoring average (18.5 points per game).<\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__TextBase-sc-1fnzlkn-3 bYFsJw cuqaEv article-text\">MORE ON KD: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.click2houston.com\/news\/local\/2026\/01\/19\/kevin-durant-passes-dirk-nowitzki-to-become-the-nbas-6th-all-time-leading-scorer\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Kevin Durant passes Dirk Nowitzki to become the NBA\u2019s sixth all-time leading scorer<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__TextBase-sc-1fnzlkn-3 bYFsJw cuqaEv article-text\">In an interview with ESPN, Vincent Goodwill reported that Durant wants to earn his spot on the team, saying his intention to play is contingent on maintaining elite productivity over the next two years.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__TextBase-sc-1fnzlkn-3 bYFsJw cuqaEv article-text\">\u201cHell yeah, I want to play,\u201d Durant told ESPN. \u201cI would love to, but I\u2019ve got to stay on top of my game &#8230; Today, yeah, I feel like I\u2019ll put my name in that hat.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__TextBase-sc-1fnzlkn-3 bYFsJw cuqaEv article-text\">A report from ESPN contributed to this report. Read the full article <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/nba\/story\/_\/id\/48014969\/kevin-durant-says-plans-play-2028-olympics-los-angeles\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/nba\/story\/_\/id\/48014969\/kevin-durant-says-plans-play-2028-olympics-los-angeles\">here.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Copyright 2026 by KPRC Click2Houston &#8211; All rights reserved.<\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The most decorated men\u2019s basketball player in Team USA history has announced his plans to return for the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":620442,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3794],"tags":[39908,7,292,194,4066,938,6,5744,211,66,4109],"class_list":["post-620441","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-houston-rockets","tag-2028-summer-olympics","tag-basketball","tag-houston","tag-houston-rockets","tag-houstonrockets","tag-kevin-durant","tag-nba","tag-olympics","tag-rockets","tag-sports","tag-team-usa"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/620441","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=620441"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/620441\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/620442"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=620441"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=620441"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=620441"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}