Kevin Durant's Agent Rejects Idea Team USA Star Will Miss Olympics Opener with Injury

The United States men's basketball team played its five-game exhibition schedule ahead of the 2024 Paris Games without Kevin Durant because of a calf injury, but his agent believes he will take the floor for Sunday's Olympics opener against Serbia.

In fact, Rich Kleiman said the suggestion from ESPN's Brian Windhorst that the Americans could be without Durant is "not true."

Team USA already had to replace an injured Kawhi Leonard with Derrick White ahead of the Games, but head coach Steve Kerr pushed back at the idea of doing the same with Durant.

He told reporters there has been "no thought" toward replacing the Phoenix Suns star despite the calf issue:

Between Kleiman's comment and a report from Joe Vardon of The Athletic saying Durant is day-to-day, it seems like the future Hall of Famer will be suiting up for the Red, White and Blue sooner rather than later.

For his part, Durant said, "I've seen progress every day," per Tim Reynolds of the Associated Press. "It's one of those things. Just got to monitor it every day. I'll see how I feel after I do certain exercises. My thing is to keep running and see what happens."

There was no reason to push things in the exhibition slate, as the Americans were simply using those games to get ready for the actual Olympics. They also went 5-0 without him, although going undefeated was anything but easy.

LeBron James bailed out the team in crunch time of a one-point win over South Sudan and a four-point win over Germany. Team USA also defeated Australia by just six and struggled offensively at times against Canada.

Of course, the return of the all-time leading men's Olympics scorer for Team USA will be quite the boost.

Durant helped the Americans win gold in the 2012, 2016 and 2020 Games and has the opportunity to become the first men's basketball player to win four gold medals.

That is surely providing plenty of motivation as he attempts to return from injury.