It was the final game with the national team for Mike Krzyzewski, who took the Americans back to the top and leaves with them there after becoming the first coach to win three Olympic gold medals. While this tournament saw the final games of Manu Ginobili and Tony Parker in their national-team uniforms, there is more talent coming up behind them. He was the hand over the American team’s heart.
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Plenty of great players have thrown on the red, white, and blue and represented their country on the basketball court.
The 69 year-old coach said this last US team, made up of 10 new faces with no Olympic experience, played its best basketball in the medal rounds. Tougher. Harder. Unlike 2008 and 2012, when the gold-medal games were the toughest, the gold-medal game was one of the easiest of all after a difficult group stage that included a three-point win over these same Serbians.
The USA have claimed 14 gold medals in the 17 Games they have competed in.
Depth, then, is USA Basketball’s strength-always has been, and you’d expect nothing less from the top basketballing nation on earth, even in a year when the likes of LeBron James, Steph Curry, and Chris Paul begged off. It was a prestige honor before, but once they came in and built up a culture, it totally changed into a different dynamic. “That advantage has slipped somewhat”, he said.
“They are superstars. If you let them play like they want, they will kill you”, guard Stefan Markovic said. And what Anthony said after that loss stuck with Krzyzewski so much that he used it to sum up his time with USA Basketball a decade later.
“To come out there and play as well as we did against a team that had stepped up their play as well, it showed that we came together at the right time”, Durant said.
Aside from discussing the Olympics, Robinson also touched on the San Antonio Spurs’ summer and the retirement of his good friend, Tim Duncan.
The US Olympians, who started locked at 11-all, rolled up their sleeves after a few minutes of seemingly tight action to take the half, 52-29, en route to a plastering of Serbia which they had barely beaten (94-91) in the Rio basketball quarterfinals.
When Kevin Durant made a decision to leave Oklahoma City, chose to leave Russell Westbrook, and made a decision to come west and try his hand alongside Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson, he knew he’d face a barrage of criticism and negativity from the media and from fans. “It takes time, you look at what happened with LeBron, Wade, and Bosh”. It was good to kind of get everything out, go up against each other, get after each other a little bit today. “We’ll work real close together in making sure we can keep this thing going”. Durant played like he’s on the Oklahoma City Thunder, not having to care for one second if he needs to move the ball into more unsafe areas, and to open players. That’s because they are recognizing more and more foreign players from teams that play, or have played, in the National Basketball Association.
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Their predecessors for years had dominated the worldwide competition with relative ease to win gold.
