Gregg Popovich will temporarily take off his helm as San Antonio Spurs head coach after the season to put on another as the head coach of Team USA heading into FIBA World Cup competition in China. But to get there, it was up to his counterpart, Jeff Van Gundy, to get the Americans qualified, which he did after mustering a 10-2 record after beating out Argentina 84-83 on Monday:
“He was remarkable. Spectacular. Off the charts what he did to qualify the USA for the world championships,” Popovich said, according to The Associated Press. “He put together about five different teams, mostly different players each time in a short amount of time they had to get them ready. If they didn't do well, U.S. doesn't go and he deserves a lot of credit for doing that on his own and really grateful to him.”
The scheduling conflict between FIBA competition and the NBA season forced USA Basketball to recruit talent from the G League and overseas to assemble a roster for Team USA, along with a fill-in coach in Van Gundy, who will pass the baton to Popovich after successfully qualifying the team for World Cup competition.
By winning in China, Team USA would get an immediate ticket to the 2020 Olympics and likely be able to continue a run of dominance, which they had under Mike Krzyzewski, winning gold in each of the last three Olympiads.
Pop also acknowledged Jerry Colangelo's architectural part in making this qualification possible, along with the successes that followed a grim Athens 2004 disappointment:
“Jerry Colangelo has been the wizard of that, he's been the guy who's put those teams together along with Sean Ford,” Popovich said. “The two of them have done yeoman work over the years in putting the groups together and they're good at it, so I'll leave that to them.”
Popovich will collaborate with Ford before deciding on a shortlist of invites for training camp, effectively starting his tenure as a Team USA coach.
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