If you assumed that Steve Kerr’s coaching of Team USA would be better than his takes on the 2nd Amendment and current events, you have assumed too much.
Team USA Basketball, the Steve Kerr-coached supposed “superteam” with LeBron James, Steph Curry, Joel Embiid, and others on its star-studded roster, nearly lost to South Sudan on Saturday at London’s O2 Arena.
Team USA faced a 14-point halftime deficit and needed a last-minute driving layup from LeBron James to eke out a 101-100 victory. It’s hard to put into words how big of an upset it would have been had the USA lost. South Sudan has never put a basketball team in the Olympics before. They are nicknamed the “Bright Stars.” Had South Sudan won the game – which they had three chances to do just before the buzzer – a team making its Olympic debut would have knocked off a team whose combined wealth far exceeds the GDP of their home country.
In other words, it would have been incredibly embarrassing.
Steve Kerr took the blame for the team’s poor performance.
“I did not do a great job preparing our team. I think we did not focus enough on what they’re capable of, and that’s on me,” Kerr said after the game.
“They played a wonderful game and the ending was good for us just to feel that. To feel what it’s going to be like in Paris and Lille … a good reminder that when we play against teams, it’s the biggest game of their lives, and we have to expect everyone to play like that.”
Inexplicably, with Team USA down double-digits, Kerr elected not to start LeBron James in the third quarter. A decision that seems to have visibly irked James.
“I think the whole team was embarrassed at halftime to be totally outplayed and down 14,” Kerr said. “And I don’t think [James] was real thrilled about me not starting him in the third quarter. But I thought that next group that we put out there really did a good job defensively. And I looked down a couple of times and I can see LeBron chomping at the bit to be out on the floor as soon as he got out there and he went to work, so he was brilliant.”
It’s a good thing. Had he not, Team USA would have suffered the worst upset in international basketball history.
Kerr took over for Gregg Popovich as Team USA’s coach after the 2020 Olympics. In his first tournament, the USA finished fourth. It was hoped that this year’s Olympics would be the moment Kerr got things headed in the right direction.
So far, that does not seem to be the case.
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