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By Yaron Weitzman
FOX Sports activities NBA Author
Gregg Popovich’s first interplay with USA basketball got here in 1972.
He was the captain of the Armed Forces’ group on the time, two years faraway from the US Air Power Academy, the place, as a senior, he’d led the basketball squad in scoring. He was a bodily guard who may rating and defend, and his performances had caught the eye of the Olympic choice committee, which had invited him to check out.
Popovich, by all accounts, performed effectively. However the committee was composed of coaches eager about voting their very own gamers onto the group. Popovich had no booster. He was one of many remaining cuts.
“It was a kick within the intestine,” R.C. Buford, Popovich’s longtime pal and colleague with the San Antonio Spurs, instructed ESPN’s Jackie MacMullan in March 2020. “He is by no means forgotten it.”‘
Over the following half-century, Popovich would grow to be some of the revered and completed coaches within the historical past of sports activities. He’d lead the Spurs to 5 NBA titles, the primary and final 15 years aside. He’s simply 26 wins away from passing Don Nelson for many ever by an NBA head coach.
Greater than all that, although, Popovich has grow to be an exemplar of excellence, an individual folks all through the world level to when searching for fashions of sustained success.
However he by no means did get the chance to symbolize the US as a participant, and the few probabilities he’s had as a coach have all led to disappointment. It’s one of many nice incongruities of contemporary sports activities: The NBA’s biggest coach, an Air Power graduate who served within the army and who, in 2019, described enjoying for Crew USA as “the best degree you will be” and “past enjoying for an NBA group,” can’t appear to win the sport that issues to him most.
In 2002, Popovich served as an assistant to the George Karl-led group that completed an embarrassing sixth within the World Championships. Two years after that, he served as an assistant to Larry Brown for the group that broke Crew USA’s post-Dream Crew gold medal streak and as an alternative took house bronze.
That efficiency led to a rebooting of the US’ worldwide basketball program and likewise contributed to Popovich being handed over for the “Redeem Crew” head teaching job in favor of Duke legend Mike Krzyzewski.
Popovich changed Krzyzewski after the 2016 Olympic Video games. Based on veteran NBA reporter Marc Stein, in one in every of his first addresses to his group, previous to the 2019 FIBA Basketball World Cup, Popovich talked concerning the 2004 failure and the way it had stung him greater than any loss he’d endured all through his storied NBA profession, an inventory that features Ray Allen’s title-snatching 3-pointer from the nook throughout the 2013 Finals.
The speech was possible inspiring, but it surely didn’t produce outcomes. Crew USA completed seventh, its worst displaying ever in worldwide competitors.
When Crew USA faces off towards France within the gold-medal sport tonight at 10:30 p.m. ET, Popovich will get one other likelihood to win on the highest degree whereas formally representing his nation. At 72 years outdated, it’s prone to be his final likelihood.
You by no means need to interact in an excessive amount of armchair psychology with Popovich, however I feel it’s honest to say that over the previous month we’ve seen this historical past weigh on him. His reactions following Crew USA’s exhibition losses — first to Nigeria, a rustic the US had crushed by 83 factors solely 9 years earlier, after which to Australia — have been out of character.
His terse alternate with a reporter who contrasted the losses with earlier Crew USA blowout wins went viral. However extra telling — and unusual — was the way in which he deflected blame. Crew USA then fell to France in its Olympics opener, its first Olympics loss since 2004. The defeat dropped Popovich’s Crew USA document to an unsightly 6-3. After the sport, based on The Athletic, gamers might be heard, “grumbling on their means again to the locker room about ‘operating the San Antonio offense.’”
Over the previous couple of weeks the group has gelled. Popovich has tweaked the rotation, handing extra minutes to defensive ace Jrue Vacation, who joined the group late due to the Milwaukee Bucks’ championship run. In the meantime, Popovich has handed the keys to the offense to Kevin Durant, who not too long ago grew to become Crew USA’s all-time main scorer. The modifications, mixed with improved chemistry, have led to 4 straight wins.
Will these modifications be sufficient to knock off a French group that’s already crushed the Individuals? France’s roster is stuffed with NBA gamers, together with All-Star and three-time Defensive Participant of the Yr Rudy Gobert, Evan Fournier — the smooth-scoring wing who simply signed an almost $80-million contract with the New York Knicks — and Nic Batum.
The USA ought to win. It additionally wouldn’t come as a shock if Crew USA would not.
However these Olympics are happening throughout the globe, in the midst of the night time, in the midst of a pandemic, with a variant of the coronavirus burning by way of 1000’s of individuals a day. Many individuals on this nation aren’t paying a lot consideration to the Olympics. They gained’t discover if the American basketball group comes house with a silver medal as an alternative of a gold.
Popovich will, although. No one has extra using on this sport than him. A victory would offer the one accomplishment his profession nonetheless lacks. And a failure to seize gold could be one thing that haunts him for the remainder of his life.
Yaron Weitzman is an NBA author for FOX Sports activities and the writer of Tanking to the Prime: The Philadelphia 76ers and the Most Audacious Course of within the Historical past of Skilled Sports activities. Observe him on Twitter @YaronWeitzman.

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