LeBron James, who turns 40 five days after Christmas, has no intention of playing in the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics four years from now. He doesn't even plan to be in town.

"No, I won't be there," LeBron told NBC's 'Today' show. "I'm getting the hell out of that city when the Olympics come to Los Angeles [laugh]. All right, I'll live there all year. I will not be in Los Angeles in '28. I'm getting out of there.”

LeBron is far from alone in not expecting to play in L.A. four years down the road — the United States is sending its oldest-ever men's basketball team to Paris, with an average age just above 30. LeBron is the oldest, but Stephen Curry is 36, Kevin Durant 35, Jrue Holiday 34, Anthony Davis 31 and Joel Embiid 30, as is just-added Derrick White (who is three years younger than the guy he replaced, Kawhi Leonard).

To a man, those veteran players talked about understanding that this is the final time they will wear "USA" across their chests, and they are not taking this last chance to chase gold — together — for granted.

"It's probably, realistically, my last opportunity to even have a chance to play, so it all kind of aligned the right way, so I hope it continues to align to a gold medal," Curry said, summing up the thoughts of his teammates.

"We got a couple older guys, a few years later," Durant said, comparing this to previous U.S. teams he was on. "So these guys are more experienced and more mature. Looking forward to playing with them."

With experience comes wisdom. More importantly for Team USA, this group has experience playing under the different rules — and with the different basketball — of FIBA. This U.S. squad isn't learning on the fly to play the international game, and that matters.

"Yeah, it helps for sure," Davis told NBC Sports. "Like I say, a lot of guys on this team have done it [played FIBA] — even the younger guys. Ant [Anthony Edwards] did it last year. Bam [Adebayo] has one [gold medal] and has done it before, and pretty much everybody on the team.”

The other thing all that experience buys is a willingness to put egos aside and play a role within the team rather than starring on it. That is an American tradition maybe best exemplified by Kobe Bryant in 2008 going to coach Mike Krzyzewski and saying he wanted the toughest defensive assignments, not to score.

"Yes, a lot of talent. A lot of talent on this team and you know talent only gets you so far," LeBron said. "It's how can we mesh and come together and have that camaraderie on the floor and off the floor which will give us the ability to win gold.

"We all are making sacrifices to be here and understanding what it means to represent Team USA. So none of us are looking forward to going out and trying to carry the team like we sometimes have to do for our respective franchises. No one is looking forward to us coming in scoring 30 or having to get 17 rebounds. No, we want to play for each other.”

They know they are playing for each other for the last time and don't want to let that experience slip through their hands.

They want those hands full of gold when they take off that Team USA jersey for the final time.