Why Team USA's near-loss to South Sudan is so alarming

A comeback, a LeBron takeover and a 1-point win.

Good morning. Let’s basketball.

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The Embarkation of the Queen of Sheba; Claude Lorrain; 1648

The Team USA men’s team moved its pre-Olympics warm-up schedule to London over the weekend, and faced its Olympic groupmate South Sudan in London on Saturday. South Sudan, the sole African qualifier, is considered the weakest team in the tournament, in part because African teams rarely win much in these global basketball competitions and in part because South Sudan is a terrifically young program on account of being a very young nation. The South Sudanese do boast current and former NBA players — Wenyen Gabriel and JT Thor — and another player familiar to some NBA audiences in Carlik Jones, a former G-League MVP, plus a number of players who played American college ball. They have an NBA-level coach in Royal Ivey. But this is a team most analysts place below Japan and Puerto Rico in the Olympic field.

In any case, South Sudan led Team USA by 16 points in the warm-up game on Saturday. And that is with Team USA playing what appeared to be its normal rotation minus Kevin Durant (still not playing, still on the roster).

In the end, LeBron James staged a vintage takeover and Team USA won by a point as the South Sudanese missed a few game-winning opportunities in the closing seconds. (Gabriel appears to get mugged on the putback attempt.)

That JT Thor stepback corner three to put South Sudan up by a point with 20 seconds left is just incredible, even in a pre-tournament warm-up game. That’s legend-making stuff. But of course, Thor then had to stop a LeBron with a head of steam on the other side.

What makes this so alarming, even after Team USA ran through and beat some much more imposing teams like Canada and Serbia during warm-ups?