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If you wanted to compare the possibilities of who might be the next U.S. Olympic basketball coach to the weather, the following would make perfect sense:
A heat wave will soon hit Antarctica, a driving rainstorm will be pelting the Sahara and Jerry Colangelo will no doubt hire Gregg Popovich.
Doc Rivers is one of the top choices — of not the top choice — to become the next coach of Team USA. This is a subject that was speculated upon in the immediate aftermath of Team USA’s gold medal triumph in London, and there is reason to believe it is closer to becoming a reality.
Why?
Take a look at the transcript below from Colangelo’s recent interview on SheridanHoopsRadio.
When the subject of who would replace Mike Krzyzewski was raised, Colangelo threw Rivers’ name out there without any prompting. (And while he was at it, he flat-out rejected the notion of Russia’s head coach, David Blatt, an Israeli-American who played collegiately at Princeton, coming under consideration for the job.
The next Team USA coach will lead the team in the summer of 2014 at the World Cup (formerly known as the World Championship) in Spain.
Here is the transcript:
CS: The word came from London that Coach K said that this was going to be it for him and if that is indeed the case, he’s going to go out with 50 wins in his last 50 games, and that’s a heck of an accomplishment. I know you want to change his mind. I know you guys are supposed to get together for a bottle of red wine and a pizza. Has that happened yet?
From www.fiba.com
Steve Nash does not play international basketball anymore, which is the biggest reason why Team Canada has fallen off the map competitively since in the 12 years since the 2000 Sydney Olympics, when Nash, Todd MacCulloch and Rowen Barrett, coached by Jay Triano, won their group in pool play before losing in the first game of the knockout round to France.
There is a story I have heard in the years since that gives some good background to what caused Canada to flame out in the quarterfinals against a French team that had gone 2-3 in pool play and only advanced on a tiebreaker over China (but went on to win the silver medal).
The way the Team Canada story goes, as I have heard it (let’s be clear here, this item falls under the journalist categorization of gossip) , is like this: After defeating Yugoslavia in the final game of pool play (Nash had 26, 8 and 8), Nash and backcourt mate Rowan Barrett were having a good time in the Olympic athletes village late at night when they met two female sprinters. They challenged the ladies to a race, and Barrett pulled his hamstring.
Canada trailed by 15 at halftime against France in the next game, and McCulloch’s 23 and 9 were not enough. So ended Canada’s latest and greatest gasp for glory in Olympic basketball.
Why is all of this relevant now?
Because Triano has been re-installed as coach of Team Canada, and Nash is the top executive for Canada Basketball in a move than is akin, on a Canadian level, to Jerry Colangelo and Mike Krzyzewski taking over the USA Basketball program in 2005 when it was in tatters.
More on the Nash-Triano relationship from Doug Smith of the Toronto Star: “I’ve known Jay for 21, 22 years, since he recruited me to go to Simon Fraser University from Victoria and he’s always been a class act, just a phenomenal person and somebody who always seemed to be selfless,” said Nash. “He obviously wanted a young player to go to his university but he was also very honest with me. He told me he thought I should go play basketball in the States and for a coach that’s trying to recruit you, that was a different approach. “That meant a lot to me to hear him be honest and hear him be humble and to tell me that he believed in me and that I could go and do great things.” Nash and Triano, the 38-year-old all-star and his 53-year-old mentor and friend, have one of the more enduring basketball relationships in Canada. Triano was coaching at Simon Fraser when Nash was a high school all-star in Victoria and they were coach and star on the last Canadian men’s team to qualify for the Olympics in Sydney in 2000. That, of course, provided the high-water mark for Canada internationally since the late 1980s, a 5-2 record and a quarter-final berth. Now the two are charged with getting Canada back to that same level in 2016 in Rio, which would be just the second time in 28 years a Canadian men’s team has competed at the Olympic Games after missing out in 1992, 1996, 2004, 2008 and 2012. “To have Steve come back — he’s still an NBA basketball player, he doesn’t need to do this — I think is a huge tribute to him, to come back and care about the next generation of Canadians,” said Triano. “That’s what our relationships were about in the past and that’s what they’re about moving forward into the future. We care and we keep passing it along.”
A few other items of note from a sultry summer Saturday in The Association:
“A lot of guys cry in this league these days. I try not to get caught up in that. The management in Orlando let him get away with it. Most times, they put kids in timeout. They never put him in timeout. He just kept crying and got his way. Now he’s in LA with Kobe so they got a chance to win a couple championships in the next two or three years.
“They could have traded him and got something better for him last year. I think they just tried to play along. They just pleased him anyway they could but he never did anything to please them.”
Golliver wrote: Hard to argue with any of that. The Magic bungled the entire mess badly, settling for pennies on the dollar years after it became clear a future was untenable, while also losing former coach Stan Van Gundy in the process. What’s interesting is that Oakley was actually way out in front of the bubbling Howard mess. Back in June 2010, he questioned Howard’s commitment to the game during a Florida radio interview.
(FRIDAY’s SH BLOG: Bosh says Lakers best team in NBA “on paper”)
No American has ever played on four Olympic men’s basketball teams. LeBron James wants to be the first.
In an interview with Tom Withers of the Associated Press, who just returned from covering the U.S. Olympic team at the London Games, James said he wants to play in the 2016 Olympics if he is healthy — and if the rules allow for it.
Commissioner David Stern has proposed limiting the Olympics to players 23 and under, but FIBA secretary general David Baumann shot that idea down with authority on Friday.
James has not yet informed USA Basketball chairman Jerry Colangelo of his intentions, but the 27-year-old said he’d like to step inside the five rings one more time.
“We haven’t had that conversation,” James told Withers. “But if I’m healthy, I did the math and I’ll be 31, and if I have the opportunity to be out there, I will do it. I love it. I love being a part of it and representing my country. I don’t know what may happen in four years, but it would be great to be back out there again. Definitely.”
If James is going to have company as a four-time Olympian, he could get it from Carmelo Anthony, who also was a member of the bronze-medal U.S. team in Athens, and the gold medal-winning teams in Beijing and London.
If those two players do take their talents to Rio, there will likely be a new coach leading them.
Team USA head coach Mike Krzyzewski, who won his final 50 games coaching the men’s national team, told the AP during the London Games that he would be relinquishing the position.
FIBA Secretary General Patrick Baumann
FIBA has spoken.
And their message to NBA Commissioner David Stern is this: We’re not changing the Olympics, bub.
In an in-house interview with FIBA.com, secretary general Patrick Baumann took a strong stance against changing to a 23-and-under rule, which Stern and NBA owners are pushing for.
Baumann said such a change would actually give the United States an unfair advantage because of the advanced developmental system in the U.S. compared to other countries.
“There is also a more general issue of what the Olympic Games represent. The NBA, the IOC and FIBA, we have all earned a lot – not just in financial terms – from professional athletes being at the Olympics since 1992. This is the case with regards to the way basketball has grown, from where we were then to where we are now,” Baumann said. “So it would be premature to make changes in the quality of basketball at the Olympics, especially before having maximised the potential of the World Cup. So it’s too early to make any changes in the Olympic programme.
Baumann is proposing moving the World Cup (formerly known as the World Championship) to one year prior to the Olympics, and making it the main Olympic qualification tournament. Baumann also said FIBA would again petition the ICO to increase the number of teams in the Olympic tournament from 12 to 16. The IOC has twice rejected this proposal.
FIBA also is petitioning the IOC to add 3-on-3 basketball to the game in Rio de Janeiro in 2016.
Changes to the World Cup would not be instituted until 2019.
Interview excerpts:
Click here to read Baumann’s entire interview.
(RELATED CONTENT: Sheridan: An Open Letter to Commissioner David Stern)
(RELATED CONTENT: David Stern Wants to Ruin The Olympics, Part I)
(RELATED CONTENT: David Stern Wants to Ruin the Olympics, Part II)
