It was the kind of encounter that can only happen at the Olympics: An NBA star and the U.S. women’s table tennis team, engaging in some friendly trash talk.
It was just before the opening ceremony, as hundreds of American athletes mingled together in their Ralph Lauren blazers. The video opens as basketball player Steph Curry has brought a group of women to meet his Team USA basketball teammate Anthony Edwards.
The three women — the 28-year-old Olympic veteran Lily Zhang, and the two newcomers Rachel Sung, 20, and Amy Wang, 21 — are professionals who have played for years at the highest levels of table tennis.
Edwards, the 23-year-old guard for the Minnesota Timberwolves, is not. Yet he voiced his confidence that, should they play, he would not be shut out. “Eleven to zero?” he said, incredulously. “I don’t believe it. I’m scoring at least once.”
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