New York: The star-studded US national basketball team cannot afford to get complacent about being the sport’s superpower given the pace of emerging talent around the globe, head coach Mike Krzyzewski said.
According to Krzyzewski, having the privilege of coaching teams that have boasted NBA All-Stars LeBron James, Kobe Bryant, Kevin Durant, Carmelo Anthony and Chris Paul does not come with a guarantee of beating competition.
“People think that because we have all these guys you just roll out a ball and you’re going to win,” Krzyzewski said at a news conference to announce he would return as coach of the US national team through the 2016 Rio Olympics.
“If you do your programme that way, you’re going to get beat.”
Respect for the competition is fundamental to Krzyzewski’s approach and the lessons he has drilled into his US teams have paid off with a 62-1 mark that includes two Olympic gold medals and a current 50-game winning streak.
Krzyzewski said all you have to do is look at the rosters of the National Basketball Association’s (NBA) teams to appreciate the growth of the game globally.
“There are a lot of great teams out there and you see these guys playing in the NBA,” Krzyzewski said at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, where he has led the Blue Devils to four men’s college basketball championships.
“Twenty-one percent of the NBA is international and these teams can have anywhere between 10 and 12 NBA players on them. And we have 12 NBA players.
“And we’ll have five of them out there at one time and they’ll have five. As long as it’s five against five we could lose at any time.
“And that’s the respect you have to give your opponent and that’s what we do with our preparation.”
Krzyzewski took over as national team coach in 2005. Two years earlier, the Americans failed to reach the medals round at the world championships.
The US were humbled again in Krzyzewski’s first major competition when Greece kept the Americans out of the 2006 world championship final with a semi-finals victory. REUTERS
