Joel Embiid is out to silence a hostile French crowd when Team USA face the hosts in the men's basketball gold medal match at the Paris Olympics on Saturday. (Highlights | Medal Table | Schedule & Results)
Embiid, who was born in Cameroon but was granted US citizenship in 2022, declared for Team USA late last year after his home country failed to qualify.
That decision came after he also sought French citizenship, amid suggestions president Emmanuel Macron had called the Philadelphia 76ers star to convince him to represent the hosts.
Embiid has been jeered by French fans throughout the basketball tournament, with the USA winning all five of their games to date, reaching the final with Thursday's comeback victory over Serbia.
On the eve of Saturday's gold medal match, Embiid said: "Frankly, I don't understand why I've gotten a lot of criticism from the crowd.
"They're going to boo me. I'm going to go back at them and tell them to 'suck it.' It's going to be fun."
Reflecting on his decision to link up with LeBron James, Stephen Curry and company in representing the USA, Embiid said he would have played for Cameroon if they had qualified.
"Having lived half of my life in the US and the other half in my country, Cameroon, it just looked like it was, 'you could go two ways'," Embiid said.
"I said from the beginning that if Cameroon would've qualified, that would never have been a choice. Then having the family [in the US] and having built a lot of things and having accomplished a lot of things, knowing the group of guys deeply, it just made it easy.
"I think a lot of people wanted to make it an issue because of the storyline and all that stuff.
"But to me it's whatever it takes to win gold. So that's what I'm focused on. It's all about Team USA against France."
