Team USA Basketball winning Gold was not biggest takeaway from Olympic Basketball

Team USA Basketball winning the Gold Medal game wasn't the biggest takeaway from the Olympic Basketball play.

For the fifth straight Olympics, Team USA Basketball dominated its way to a Gold Medal. Beating France in back-to-back Olympic finals, USA Basketball proved they remain kings atop the basketball world. But despite it all, I can't help but think that there might be a bigger story to emerge from this year's Olympic basketball tournament.

Sure, Team USA Basketball continued to show their talent on the world's biggest stage. In the Gold Medal game, it was Steph Curry who led the team with 24 points en route to a 98-87 victory over France. LeBron James and Kevin Durant, who will seemingly retire from Olympic basketball competition after this tournament, finished with 14 and 15 points apiece. Devin Booker also added 15 points.

But looking across the bench, with Victor Wembanyama leading all scorers with 26 points, there was a bigger message that was sent - even in defeat from France (and the rest of the world). And it's that the "others" are coming.

USA Basketball may have prevailed this year, but with uncertainty from the team moving forward, with the likely departures of LeBron and KD, the world could be finally catching up to the United States.

The rest of the basketball world is quickly catching up to USA Basketball

Looking at the Olympic basketball landscape, it's easy to see how the rest of the world is quickly catching up to Team USA. This is not even about the obvious teams booming with talent, such as Canada, Serbia, Germany, and France. There are also so many other teams that have improved in terms of basketball in recent years.

Even a team like South Sudan showed it may be a problem in the future, nearly beating USA in exhibition play. But even watching the NBA, the league continues to be littered with international talent. And that's only going to be a norm moving forward. Over the past two seasons, the No. 1 overall picks have been international players.

While the USA continues to be a "dominant" force in basketball against the rest of the world, there could be a time in the not-so-distant future when that begins to change. The rest of the world continues to catch up to the USA in basketball, and that was one of the bigger stories from this year's Olympic basketball tournament.