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Kevin Durant is formally the highest-scoring participant in U.S. Olympic basketball historical past.
Durant surpassed Lisa Leslie’s 488 profession Olympic factors throughout Tuesday’s 2024 Paris Olympics quarterfinal towards Brazil to change into USA Basketball’s all-time main Olympic scorer.
Bleacher Report @BleacherReport
KD (489) now has the MOST PTS EVER, males’s & ladies’s, for Group USA 🇺🇸🐐 pic.twitter.com/316XMhzzq3
Durant is participating in his fourth Olympics. He won gold with Team USA at the 2012 London, 2016 Rio de Janeiro and 2020 Tokyo Games in 2021.
Durant led the USA in points in two of those Olympic appearances, pacing his teams with 156 points in London and 155 points in Rio de Janeiro.
Leslie recorded 488 points for Team USA in four Olympics as she helped lead the American women to gold at the 1996 Atlanta, 2000 Sydney, 2004 Athens and 2008 Beijing Games.
The former WNBA legend called Durant one of her “all time favorites” ahead of the new record.
Lisa Leslie @LisaLeslie
Well let me start to congradulate @KDTrey5 as he will get prepared to interrupt certainly one of my
Olympic information! The Slim Reaper!! One among my all time favorites! https://t.co/pdKr2SUz3a
Durant, who recorded 435 points in the first 22 games of his Olympic career, entered the Paris Games more than 50 points behind Leslie’s record.
Embracing his new role as the sixth man for Team USA, Durant put up 23 points in the Olympic opener against Serbia, then totaled 25 in the next two group-stage outings.
He then passed the milestone in the knockout round against Brazil, reaching six points in the game with a dunk in the third quarter.
The American Olympic scoring record isn’t the only standard Durant is on pace to set this summer. Durant is looking to become the first males’s basketball participant in Olympic historical past to gather 4 gold medals with a championship victory in Paris.
Durant is at the moment ranked No. 2 amongst all lively NBA gamers with 28,924 factors within the league, second solely to USA teammate LeBron James.
James, who in March turned the primary participant in NBA historical past to surpass 40,000 profession factors, entered the 2024 Paris Video games because the third most prolific Olympic American scorer of all time behind Durant and Leslie.