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  • Day three of practice, but Gregg Popovich and Team USA feeble World Cup tips late August in China, but with an ever changing roster and no clearly defined star player, you got Kemba Walker.

  • But beyond that, what a lot of question marks for Team USA in the dozen roster spots.

  • As for Pop, he was feeling kind of nostalgic on this Wednesday.

  • Thing that I've always want to do is be on the Olympic team player.

  • That was always my dream.

  • I got cut in 72 so uh, that was a dream.

  • But you don't say Don't say I'm gonna coach lovely coast, the Olympic team.

  • But when asked, You don't refuse, People might say, I've never read an article on any of our five championships.

  • Read what?

  • Good.

  • So whether it's applause or somebody saying you know one idiot or whatever, I could care less When they're both fake, they really are more important.

  • Things kind of wine.

  • Order for dinner kids.

  • Well, I assume it's 1000 degrees.

  • I hope the grass hopper plague has left us.

  • But we do find our friend Brian Wynne horse there in Vegas and I love Lucy goosey pop.

  • I love When pop shows us the side that people that truly know him say is who he really is.

  • What is the sense you have of how pop feels about what he has and what he doesn't have with this group?

  • You know, he's been in a really good mood all week.

  • He's been around a lot of his fellow coaches.

  • He was with Mike Stachowski today and was talking to him a lot.

  • You know, he has Steve Kerr here.

  • This is something.

  • Look, it, Scott.

  • He's having a checkered history with USA Basketball.

  • Okay, now he didn't make the team in 72 you know, got drunk.

  • But in the 2002 they were on a team that finished in six place in the world championship.

  • He was on that staff in 2004 he was on Larry Brown's staff and that we all remember they got the bronze in Athens.

  • So this wasn't a guy who I thought would be running to get back to this.

  • You know, he did his most important player ever.

  • Tim Duncan basically threw his hands up and said, I can't take playing for us a basket because they call fouls on me, so I was kind of surprised he even took this job, and so to be in the situation where he is in now, where he's got a team that, frankly, is one of the weaker Team USA, as we've seen in the last 15 or 20 years, I'm glad he's got good humor because it's a tough job he's got.

  • I agree.

  • And I the thing I was really most interested in to talk to you about today was the idea of identifying who the guy will be and how that happens.

  • How does that sort of organically develop?

  • And I'm not expecting you or or Pop or anybody else to know the answer now.

  • But what's the sense of how that progresses and who becomes the guy?

  • Yeah, well, I will say this.

  • Donovan Mitchell has looked really good here.

  • Andi is in this spot where you're a second year player, going to your third year, where we've seen players throughout MBA history make a giant leap.

  • Another guy who has impressed people who've been able to watch all the practices has been Jayson Tatum.

  • He shot the ball really well, but Scott, the star of this team is Gregg Popovich, and I know that that sounds strange.

  • And he's even uncomfortable probably hearing that.

  • But because they don't have superstars on this team, they're gonna have to rely on the system.

  • And if you've watched them scrimmage last three days like I have, they are focusing on teaching a system.

  • They're not building around to start.

  • And when the system is the most important thing, it's on the coach.

  • So Greg Popovich is going in with a pretty big weight on his shoulders.

  • He's gonna have to really carry this team, and it's gonna have to uphold the fact that this team hasn't lost in 13 years.

  • Well, I mean, Pops wired for this kind of thing and defusing it with humor.

  • But he's the You think he's gonna zig.

  • He zags.

  • That's the beauty of Pop.

  • He's always got a card in the deck.

  • You're not ready for Appreciate the time, Brian be well, we'll talk again soon.

  • All right, Thanks, Scott.

  • Thanks for watching ESPN on YouTube.

Day three of practice, but Gregg Popovich and Team USA feeble World Cup tips late August in China, but with an ever changing roster and no clearly defined star player, you got Kemba Walker.

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