St. Joe’s alumnus Langston Galloway played a key role for Team USA. He wants to use it to restart his NBA career.

PARIS — Here’s the thing about being an NBA player or an Olympian or an elite professional athlete of any kind: You are great. You are. You have to be great just to make it. People forget this. People fixate on the immortals or the athletes who might or could be, on their successes and failures, on the qualities that distinguish and separate them. They forget that every player on every team in every major league is among the best of the best at what they do. Do you have any idea what an amazing baseball player Garrett Stubbs is?

Here is the other thing about being an NBA player or an Olympian or an elite professional athlete of any kind: You in all likelihood believe you are great, no matter how great or mediocre or less-than-mediocre you are relative to your peers, rivals, and competitors. All you need is a break, a chance, a general manager or coach who sees in you what you have always seen in yourself, and you will prove your greatness once and for all.

You need that, and some good luck. Kevin Costner can rhapsodize about good Scotch and the small of a woman’s back all he wants. The most authentic monologue he delivers in Bull Durham is the one in which he notes that just one more hit a week — a flare, a gorp, a ground ball, a ground ball with eyes — is the difference between staying stuck in the minors and playing in Yankee Stadium. Between being a star and being just another guy.

So what does it say about Langston Galloway — who was a star at St. Joseph’s, who spent eight seasons in the NBA, who has been out of the league for two years — that he played the role that he did for the U.S. Olympic men’s basketball team, and that he played it willingly? Because his role was not on equal footing with those of LeBron James, Steph Curry, Kevin Durant, Joel Embiid, or anyone else on the roster. Galloway, who is 32, volunteered to be a practice player for Team USA, a warm body for workouts as the club bounced from Las Vegas to Abu Dhabi to London in its exhibition schedule before the Summer Games.

It seemed a pretty self-aware and egoless thing for a guy to do. Granted, Galloway has his own interest in mind, too. He has been playing in Europe — Lithuania and Italy, specifically — ever since the Indiana Pacers waived him in October 2022, and he’d like another shot in the NBA. But still, aren’t there better ways to do that than being served up as chopped liver to ‘Bron and KD every day for a month? Why do it?

“Number one, just being around those players,” he said by phone on Tuesday. “If I had to look around, from my perspective, I had damn near, what, 10 Hall of Famers or more in the gym? For me, on a day-to-day basis, going out there and being able to play one-on-one, being able to practice, being part of everything that’s going on, that’s an experience I can’t pass up. Also, I’m able to keep my name relevant, either in the NBA or overseas, just continuing to say, ‘Hey, I can still do this at a high level. I just need the right team at the right time in the right place.’”

Galloway’s game never was the issue during his time in the NBA. The guy could always play, could always score: 1,991 points over his four years at St. Joe’s, a 36.8% three-point shooter over more than 450 games in the league with seven teams. His size, 6-foot-1, limited him. After a 40-game stint with the Phoenix Suns during the 2020-21 season, Galloway, rather than go back to the G League, accepted an offer to play for the U.S.’s FIBA World Cup qualifying teams in 2022 and 2023. He was headed back to Italy once that stint was over, but he told Sean Ford, who oversees USA Basketball’s men’s programs, that he’d be up for coming back to be a practice player.

Ford called him in April: What do you think?

“Two days later, I’m like, ‘I’m doing it,’” Galloway said. “It’s a lifetime opportunity.”

Team USA’s individual and collective intelligence — that’s what stands out to him most. Every adjustment that head coach Steve Kerr, one of his assistants, or one of the players recommended or suggested happened on the fly, immediately and seamlessly. Then there were the subtle things: Jrue Holiday’s unrelenting defense, Durant’s ability to use his Plastic Man arms and savvy to bother an opponent’s jump shot, Anthony Edwards’ anticipation and daring in overplaying passing lanes. And …

“Obviously, LeBron,” Galloway said. “He’s leading the team, No. 1, and No. 2, he’s able to say, ‘Hey, let’s do this. Change this. Put this in.’ Whoa, he’s locked in. You’ve got so many guys who have so many things they bring to the game. The expression I’ve been using is, ‘When you hang around dogs, you become a dog.’ That’s what I want to be, and that’s what I continue to strive for, and that’s what all of them are. They’re hungry dogs, and they want to eat.

“As much success as they’re having, I feel like I’m having the same success. I know that I was a part of it. I was right there in the thick of it, trying to help them get ready. So once they win the gold — and I’m going to go ahead and speak it into existence — I’m going to feel like I won the gold. It’s going to be a great moment.”

He didn’t make the trip here with the Olympic team. He’s back in the States, near his hometown of Baton Rouge, La., planning to return to Italy next week to play for a team in Sicily, hoping that his phone buzzes with a call from an NBA GM who needs an unselfish veteran guard. “I know for sure,” he said, “I’m going to have an opportunity to get back there.” He is, after all, an elite professional athlete, which makes him great. And all a great player needs — even a great Olympic practice player — is a chance.