Admin July 28, 2024
US men’s Olympic basketball team is stacked with LeBron James, Steph Curry
NBA star-studded U.S Olympic roster looks to capture their fifth-straight gold medal at the Paris Games.
From the time James Naismith set up a peach basket in a gym at the YMCA Training School in western Massachusetts in 1891, basketball has been an unmistakably American game.
Though the sport has grown significantly internationally over the past 30 years, a broader trend reflected across NBA rosters, the United States remains the home of the sport’s top professional league and many of its best players.
That superiority, while not nearly as overwhelming as it was in the years after NBA players began competing in the Olympics, has been evident on the global stage. The U.S. has won seven of the past eight Olympic basketball gold medals, a run that began with the famed Dream Team at the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona.
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Given that track record, a first-place finish at the Olympics largely isn’t viewed as an accomplishment by American sports fans, but an expectation, placing something of an onerous burden not only on the U.S. players, but its coach.
Coaching the U.S. Olympic basketball team is a high-profile position, not only because of the opportunity to coach some of the best players in the world while representing your country, but because of what it symbolizes. Since basketball was first played at the Olympics 88 years ago, the role has been occupied by some of the most celebrated and decorated figures to ever roam a sideline, with a gold medal standing near the top of any of their lengthy resumes.
As the U.S. team prepares to defend its gold medal at the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris, here’s a look at the coach and the history of the position:
Who is the USA Basketball coach for the 2024 Paris Olympics?
The United States national basketball team will be led at the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris by coach Steve Kerr.
It will be Kerr’s first Olympics as the team’s head coach, though he was an assistant coach under Gregg Popovich for the gold-medal-winning U.S. squad in the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo.
Kerr recently completed his 10th season as the head coach of the Golden State Warriors, whom he has led to four NBA championships in that time. During his tenure, the Warriors have gone 519-274, including a 207-39 mark in his first three seasons that allowed him to become the first coach in NBA history with at least 67 wins in three consecutive seasons.
Kerr has been named the NBA coach of the year once — in 2016, after he had guided Golden State to an NBA record 73 regular-season wins — and was named one of the 15 greatest coaches in NBA history as part of the league’s 75th anniversary celebration in 2022.
“His basketball acumen, his ability to connect with people, I think his understanding and respect of the international game, along with some other factors, certainly played a role in this process,” Grant Hill, the managing director of the U.S. team and former NBA all-star, said at the time of Kerr’s selection. “As I talked to people and went through consideration, he was the perfect fit. His wealth of experiences, including that on the international stage, I think really differentiated him.”
Miami Heat coach Erik Spoelstra, Los Angeles Clippers coach Tyronn Lue and Gonzaga coach Mark Few will serve as assistant coaches on Kerr’s staff for the Olympics.
In Kerr’s first major international tournament as the team’s head coach, the U.S. finished in fourth at the 2023 FIBA World Cup. The Americans went 5-3 in the event, losing to Lithuania, eventual champion Germany and Canada, the last of which came in overtime in the third-place game.
The U.S. roster for the World Cup was made up primarily of younger players, only two of whom, Anthony Edwards and Tyrese Haliburton, will be making the trip to Paris for the Olympics.
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Team USA Basketball roster 2024
With Kerr leading the way as the head coach, here’s the 12-man U.S. basketball roster for the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris:
- Guard: Steph Curry, Golden State Warriors
- Guard: Anthony Edwards, Minnesota Timberwolves
- Guard: Jrue Holiday, Boston Celtics
- Guard: Devin Booker, Phoenix Suns
- Guard: Tyrese Haliburton, Indiana Pacers
- Forward: LeBron James, Los Angeles Lakers
- Forward: Kevin Durant, Phoenix Suns
- Forward: Kawhi Leonard, Los Angeles Clippers
- Forward: Jayson Tatum, Boston Celtics
- Forward/center: Anthony Davis, Los Angeles Lakers
- Center: Joel Embiid, Philadelphia 76ers
- Center: Bam Adebayo, Miami Heat
Team USA Basketball coaches
Kerr becomes the 17th basketball head coach for the United States in the Summer Olympics.
It’s a lengthy list that features some of the sport’s most accomplished coaches, be it at the college or professional level. All but two of the coaches whose teams ultimately competed in the Olympics finished their stints with at least one gold medal.
If Kerr’s still at the helm for the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, he’ll be a historical outlier. Only two men, Henry Iba and Mike Krzyzewski, coached the U.S. basketball team in multiple Olympics.
Here’s a history of the U.S. basketball coaching position, with the head coach and the year of the Olympics in which they coached listed:
- James Needles: 1936
- Omar Browning: 1948
- Warren Womble: 1952
- Gerald M. Tucker: 1956
- Pete Newell: 1960
- Henry Iba: 1964-72
- Dean Smith: 1976
- Dave Gavitt: 1980*
- Bob Knight: 1984
- John Thompson: 1988
- Chuck Daly: 1992
- Lenny Wilkens: 1996
- Rudy Tomjanovich: 2000
- Larry Brown: 2004
- Mike Krzyzewski: 2008-16
- Gregg Popovich: 2020
- Steve Kerr: 2024
* The U.S. boycotted the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow
