When the U.S. men’s basketball team won Olympic gold in Paris last year, it was a fitting answer to critics. The team celebrated, of course, but while the stories of wild parties remain confidential to those who were there, a quiet moment of celebration became viral. A photograph was taken of the team wearing their medals and sitting on stairs outside the gym.
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Derrick White saw Golden State Warriors’ Stephen Curry go on a three-pointer shooting barrage, outdoing his own performance against the Celtics in the 2022 NBA Finals. While White had to swallow the bitter pills the first time around, when Curry showed up in God mode in Paris, he couldn’t help but appreciate what he had seen.
White averaged 3.8 points, 1.4 rebounds, 1.8 assists, 1.4 steals and a block per game in Paris. Who knows if he’ll be seen in Team USA colors again, so the gold, the staircase photo and the t-shirt commemorating it all are really special to him.
On an episode of his own podcast, White Noise, White was asked about the t-shirt he was wearing, sporting the iconic stair image, and he was happy to get nostalgic.
“These stairs were right outside the gym in Paris and everybody would leave at different times, so people would kind of just sit out there. Because the weather was nice out there,” Carter recalled. The area was blocked off from the general public, so it was a good place for the guys to relax.
“Everybody would sit out there, would be chilling out there and just wait for everybody to come out. I think probably … [Devin Booker] had the camera the whole time. He’s like, ‘Let’s take a flick.’ So we did. We won the game, and we got the picture, and then we got posted,” he revealed.
Thus began the trend, and they started doing this pretty much after every game. “And when we won, everybody just kind of got there, we were all waiting for Steph. We got out champagne next to us and we are all just sitting there on the steps again … so excited for this photo. It turned out be an iconic location for us.”
This was as organic as anything could be. By the end of it, it had become about not wanting to wait in the locker room for everyone to show up to celebrate. “They didn’t want us on the bus, and we sat on the steps, and it turned out to be a fire photo,” White admitted.
As far as Steph being late, given that he willed his way to a win in the final, you could argue he was allowed a few liberties.
