San Antonio Spurs head coach Gregg Popovich has had plenty of rousing success in the NBA along with his share of painful moments, yet none compare to the gut-wrenching feeling he felt when Team USA lost to Argentina in the semifinals of the 2004 Athens Olympics. The longest-tenure coach in the league was an assistant under Larry Brown back then, and go to witness how a talented, yet unprepared squad was beat by a backcourt of Pepe Sanchez and Manu Ginobili tore through the American defense to reach the gold medal game.
USA Basketball managing director Jerry Colangelo emphasized this task of leading Team USA to a gold medal is rather personal for Popovich, who told his team just how much it means to him.
“He has been totally focused and engrossed in this responsibility. This is big to him,” Colangelo told Michael Lee of The Athletic. “He said to the guys (Sunday night) in his talk, he’s been blessed with a lot of success. But in ‘04, what he went through, he said he wanted to jump in a hole by the whole thing. He’s lost a couple of big games in the playoffs, in the championship round. He talked about the last one they lost (to Miami in 2013). They pale in comparison to how bad he felt in ‘04, because he was representing his country. He said, that loss in Greece in the Olympics in ‘04, ‘was the worst defeat of my life.’ He says, ‘I still think about it.’”
The Americans were largely favored to win that game, but suffered with Tim Duncan in foul trouble, outshot and out-hustled by an engaged Argentina team that kept making every shot count. Ginobili scored a game-high 29 points, adding to what would be the start of his legend in the NBA.
This 2019 squad is very much a pre-up to Pop's own redemption, much like the 2006 team was for Mike Krzyzewski in its quest to bring back the gold.
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