Team USA's win over Serbia was both an instant classic and promising sign of where Olympic basketball is going

The world is finally ready to compete with Team USA in earnest

The most important basketball games in Olympic history tend to have two things in common: they are Team USA losses, and the fallout surrounding those games boils down to what Team USA lacked. When Team USA lost to the Soviet Union in the semifinals in 1988, the rules were changed to allow NBA players to participate in 1992. That gave us the Dream Team. When the Americans lost to Argentina in the semifinals in 2004, it forced a roster-construction reckoning. USA Basketball overhauled its leadership, completely reconsidered what type of players it brought to the Olympics, and hasn't lost a gold medal since. It's become a bit of a cycle. Every 20 years or so, Team USA catches a glimpse of its basketball mortality and decides to straighten up and fly right. That buys a bit of time against a world that we so frequently hear is catching up.

It's also what made Thursday's semifinal against Serbia such an instant classic. There are no more levers for Team USA to pull here. This is the A-Team, and Team USA's A-Team is the pinnacle of international basketball. From that perspective, this was really a first in Olympic history. Team USA has played close games before. It has even lost before. But its place atop the world's basketball hierarchy has never been threatened in such a manner.

That raised the stakes for both sides in ways that haven't really been possible before now. When we talk about legacies as they relate to the Olympics, it tends to be as simple as a medal count. Perhaps for someone like Kevin Durant, the records are mentioned as well. But the games themselves tend to fade into the background because, frankly, they often aren't that competitive, and when they are, there's usually some excuse tied to the American roster that explains why. Thursday was so special because those excuses were gone. We got to see the absolute best players in the world play in such a competitive and meaningful game that it ultimately should and likely will color the way we think about them. This was a legacy game for everyone involved.