LEARN ON THE FLY
Little time to develop chemistry for Popovich’s team full of stars
SAITAMA, Japan — On their way to march in the opening ceremony at Tokyo’s National Stadium on Friday, the NBA players on Team USA made one of the only pit stops not explicitly prohibited by Olympics organizers or by the Japanese government. They dropped by the Olympic Village — the land of cafeteria food, shared rooms and cardboard beds — where they got a glimpse of a Summer Games experience they were mostly fine limiting to a single afternoon.
As far as Gregg Popovich team field trips go, this one wasn’t quite as educational as some nor as wine-soaked as others. With Tokyo under a state of emergency because of rising COVID-19 case numbers, the museums and restaurants remain off-limits, but there probably still was a lesson to be learned and a memory to savor.
Late that night, after rubbing shoulders with the at least a few athletes destined to jump out of relative obscurity and claim gold medals over the next few weeks, the professional hoopsters returned to their hotel rooms.
Perhaps realizing more than ever that certain advantages aren’t all they’re cracked up to be.
When Team USA takes the floor Sunday at Saitama Super Arena against France, the Americans will open group play as huge gold-medal favorites, which makes sense, considering their pedigrees. But for Popovich, getting this group prepared has required him to change tacks from his main gig with the Spurs.
For much of the past three years, one of his biggest projects has been convincing an unproven, unheralded San Antonio team it can win. On the other hand, even before Team USA was a full day into training camp in Las Vegas this month, Popovich said one of his first priorities with his newly assembled collection of accomplished pros was making them understand they can lose.
Well, consider that part accomplished at least.
Yes, the games in Las Vegas were just exhibitions. But Nigeria outplayed a squad loaded with All-Stars a couple of weeks ago in a stunning upset, and then Australia did, too. If Popovich wanted a rude awakening, he got one even for himself.
With Kevin Durant and Damian Lillard, he has significant margin for error. With Devin Booker, Jrue Holiday and Khris Middleton sticking to their Team USA commitment and flying to Tokyo just a few days after grinding through the NBA Finals, Popovich now has more appealing lineup options.
He also has his team’s attention. After those two ugly defeats in Las Vegas, forward Draymond Green said Popovich told the group that “this was good for us.” If Team USA was destined to find out it wasn’t as invincible as it thought, it was better to gain that knowledge in Nevada than in Japan.
“Maybe you lost a little bit of the fear that we’ve had in (opponents’) hearts for years,” Green said after the team’s final pre-Olympics practice Saturday. “You go out and do what you’ve got to do, and you can get that right back.”
Beating France, which knocked the Americans out of the quarterfinals at the 2019 FIBA World Cup in China, would be a decent start.
The French, like so many potential Team USA opponents, have familiarity working for them. Much of their roster, including Rudy Gobert, Nicolas Batum and Evan Fournier, carries over from that World Cup two years ago, and some players have been teaming up in international competition for the better part of a decade.
If Holiday, Middleton or Booker take the floor Sunday, it will be without the benefit of a single Team USA practice. Before Zach LaVine’s contacttracing-delayed arrival in Tokyo, the Americans had only eight players. And as much as Popovich would love chemistry to come quickly, he’s not counting on it.
“You can’t force that issue,” Popovich said. “It just happens organically.”
Over the past two and a half decades, fostering that organic process has been the key to Popovich’s success. He didn’t force a franchise to grow around Tim Duncan. He didn’t force a team to feed off the frenetic unpredictability of Manu Ginobili. He didn’t force older players to learn to trust Tony Parker. Eventually, they just did.
So if there’s a possible flaw in the concept of handing a hastily constructed team of alpha dogs over to the coach who’s won more NBA games than anyone in history, that’s it. Popovich has proven he knows how to let greatness grow. On a condensed Olympics timeframe, he doesn’t have that luxury.
He has others, of course. And if those luxuries don’t lead to Team USA winning each of its six games in the next 14 days, Popovich will get plenty of blame.
Given some of the best players in the world, Popovich fulfilled the first item on his lesson plan. He convinced them of their own fallibility.
Now he hopes he didn’t convince them too well.