Golden State Warriors head coach Steve Kerr had an eye-opening experience during his first time coaching international basketball as Gregg Popovich's right-hand man during Team USA's FIBA World Cup stint. The Americans placed seventh in the recent competition, the worst finish by a United States team since NBA players were allowed to participate.

Kerr insists a lot of those struggles are directly tied to Team USA's lack of continuity.

“You can really feel the importance of continuity,” Steve Kerr told Anthony Slater of The Athletic. “We’re playing these teams who have a lot of players who’ve been together for years and years. For example, the Aussies. They had Patty Mills, (Matthew) Dellavedova, (Andrew) Bogut, (Aron) Baynes, Joe Ingles. A bunch of really good players who’ve all been playing together summer after summer.”

Kerr admitted to seeing consistent plays from some teams like Australia, who have had a key core of players that take part in each of their international competitions.

“I’d watched some international ball before. I remember watching the ’16 Olympics, observing Australia, marking down a couple of their out-of-bounds plays that I liked,” said Kerr. “Now, they’re still running the same plays — not only three years ago, but seven years ago, the 2012 Olympics. And it’s the same guys running them…

“So that’s a huge disadvantage for our team. We have different guys every tournament. That’s an advantage for them. Same thing with Spain. They went on to win the tournament. (Ricky) Rubio, (Marc) Gasol, Rudy Fernández, Sergio Llull. The usual suspects.

“It’s a good reminder of how important continuity is in the game, how beautiful it is when players know each other, know each other’s tendencies. From an American standpoint, that’s the fight we’re up against. From a coaching standpoint, it’s sort of confirmation of what I already believe. The sum of the parts is not as great as the total value you get from being together.”

Harrison Barnes was the only name in the roster that was carried from the 2016 Rio Olympics, with most others either too old, injured, or unwilling to participate.

NBA players are expected to be more willing to join Team USA for next year's 2020 Tokyo Olympics, but the question about continuity will still be a hefty one, even if they muster a much more robust roster for the upcoming competition.