Wednesday 7 August 2019 10:53, UK
USA Basketball coach Gregg Popovich has less than two weeks of training camp to decide on a 12-man roster to defend the FIBA World Cup and is relishing the challenge.
Popovich typically has a month of NBA training camp and a half-dozen or so preseason games before he picks a San Antonio team, and then gets a few more months of the regular-season grind to mould those Spurs into playoff shape.
These aren't the Spurs. And these are not typical times, either.
'No angst' for Team USA ahead of FIBA World Cup
Gregg Popovich: Team USA not 'C' players
USA Basketball will finalise their World Cup team on August 17, meaning training camp, which started on Monday, lasts less than two weeks. That also means there's a real urgency in this camp in Las Vegas, since Popovich and his staff will not have much time to decide who will fill the 12 spots on the roster that will head to China in search of a third consecutive World Cup title.
"We're looking for guys who are competitive, who can handle the discipline it's going to take to get this done, play a team game and basically fall in love with each other and have that empathy so that they feel responsible to each other and depend upon each other," Popovich said. "That obviously means you don't need the greatest amount of talent in the world.
"Too little talent is not a good thing, but we don't have that problem."
The biggest US names - LeBron James, Kawhi Leonard, Stephen Curry, Kevin Durant, James Harden - are not playing in the World Cup. There are four current All-NBA players expected in the tournament, and three of them will be aiming to beat the US. Nikola Jokic will lead gold-medal hopeful Serbia, NBA MVP Giannis Antetokounmpo is playing for Greece, and Rudy Gobert is playing for France.
The only American All-NBA guy in the mix is Kemba Walker, who knows team building over the next few days is vital.
"On the court is pretty easy. I think we'll get that," Walker said. "Off the court is where we need to figure out, where we need to spend more time and communicate more, just have fun with each other. Like Pop said, just love each other. That's the way it has to be, because it has to translate to on-the-court if we want to do something special with this team."
Popovich walked into USA Basketball's first team meeting in advance of World Cup training camp, and it seemed to some in the room that he was having a little difficulty keeping his emotions in check.
He talked about tradition, about what it means to play for your country, about expectations, about sacrifice, about playing the right way, about respect for opponents.
The only downside was that when he was done speaking, the first practice was still about 18 hours away.
"Shoot, from the get-go, I think everybody was ready to play a game or run through a brick wall for him after that talk," Brooklyn guard Joe Harris said.
On Monday, Popovich was all over the floor in his first practice, pulling some guys aside for one-on-one chats during a scrimmage and other times gathering the entire team around him to discuss the nuance of proper box-out technique.
"You can't help but teach here and there," Popovich said.
Popovich calls it "a huge responsibility" to both represent the country and continue the program's long tradition of winning. He and his assistants have been meeting for weeks, going over every possible detail.
"He is so passionate about this project and he's so well-prepared," Golden State coach and USA Basketball assistant Steve Kerr said.
Even though the US roster lacks the biggest stars, there's already a clear sense of competition.
Popovich brought in the select team - the younger NBA players who were invited to Las Vegas this week to push the national-teamers and potentially compete for their jobs - into practice on Tuesday, and players said the intensity of play immediately ramped skyward. There's no grace period for players to ease into camp, not with stakes this high.
"They came to play," Miami center Bam Adebayo said. "I give them respect."
It's already clear Popovich, entering his first tournament as the US coach, does not want the 12 best players. He wants the 12 best-fitting ones.
So the roster is still anyone's guess.
Everything that happens on the practice floor and in scrimmages will matter in terms of evaluation, of course. But there's also the off-the-court bonds that Popovich will be wanting to see, the ones forged over dinners and meetings and conversations.
When the US plane leaves Los Angeles for Australia next Saturday, bonds that might not currently exist will have to be firmly in place.
"It's about how the group fits together," Popovich said. "You know, 12 All-Stars probably aren't going to work great unless you have the right mix of point guards and defenders, big guys who can spread the court and shoot it.
"It's how they fit together. It's about being competitive, who the most team-oriented guys, who are the most dedicated guys. This is a long journey and it takes a hell of a commitment."
