Steve Kerr, the guy who was chosen to coach in the FIBA Basketball World Cup final late Friday morning only played one season in the NBA. That was nearly 15 years ago, as an assistant.
USA Basketball National Team’s Greatest Flaw Is Exposed In their Game Against Germany in the FIBA Basketball World Cup (Photo: sportingnews)
Gordon Herbert has never won an NBA championship or been in the NBA Finals. He just has one job: he is the head coach of Germany’s men’s national team. In contrast, with four NBA titles as Golden State Warriors head coach, Steve Kerr led the USA Basketball senior men’s national team in the FIBA Basketball World Cup as a side job.
According to The Sporting News, so, if you were surprised to see Herbert completely outmaneuver his opponent in the FIBA Basketball World Cup semifinals, leading Germany to a 113-111 victory against the United States, those two simple facts could explain why.
USA Basketball can’t seem to shake the notion that winning at the international level isn’t a part-time job.
“These games are difficult,” Kerr said afterwards, adding, “This is not 1992 anymore. Players are better all over the world, teams are better, and it’s not easy to win a FIBA Basketball World Cup or an Olympic game.”
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Other countries’ national teams are led by coaches such as Herbert or France’s Vincent Collet, whose club team, Metropolitans 92, played only 34 games in his country’s LNB Pro A league previous season. With the exception of the era in which Mike Krzyzewski managed the program and won three Olympic gold medals and two FIBA Basketball World Cups, the United States has been reliant on coaches who are obsessed from September to June with the 82 games on their schedules and maybe another two-dozen postseason games.
According to Flipboard, Kerr and his staff, which includes NBA champs Tyronn Lue and Erik Spoelstra, as well as Final Four participant Mark Few, deserve praise for devoting so much of their offseasons to this team. However, the work itself was uninspiring.
Throughout the FIBA Basketball World Cup, Kerr refused to accept that the starting lineup he assembled was dysfunctional. During the FIBA Basketball World Cup tournament, he only made one change to that group, eliminating struggling small forward Brandon Ingram and replaced him with Josh Hart. Despite the fact that replacements Tyrese Haliburton, Austin Reaves, and Paolo Banchero were more effective, he remained with point guard Jalen Brunson and center Jaren Jackson Jr.
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