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Duke basketball: Coach K’s absence dooms Team USA

By Matt Giles

(Photo by Phil Walter/Getty Images)
(Photo by Phil Walter/Getty Images) /
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Without the Duke basketball legend this time around, the weakening-by-the-day USA Basketball National Team has tough sledding just ahead.

Duke basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski was able to compile a 75-1 record as the head honcho for Team USA from 2006-2016, including three consecutive Olympic gold medals. He was able to due to the fact he checks off in permanent marker the one box neither of his two predecessors nor successor can check at all:

Non-threatening inspirational figure.

Three components comprised the allure of the world’s best coach in the eyes of the world’s best ballers as they contemplated whether or not to lace ’em up for Good Ol’ USA:

  1. The 72-year-old is the world’s best at motivating the world’s most elite players to continuously seek new ways to strive for greatness. His 1,132 wins and five national championships — and counting — speak for themselves.
  2. Coach K graduated from West Point — before earning a rank of captain for the United States Army — and has a goosebump-inducing way of injecting his love for his country into the veins of multi-millionaire athletes (necessary when talking about guys giving up the tail end of their summers, time they could be spending on some exotic island).
  3. Krzyzewski is not involved with the NBA, so NBA All-Stars have no on-court run-ins with him — aka, no leftover beef from prior incidents and no worries over stewing up unnecessary future beef.

Now, maybe the coaching genius whom Krzyzewski handed over the reins to, San Antonio Spurs coach Gregg Popovich, will pluck out of his basketball mind a scheme to win the 2019 World Cup (Aug. 31 through Sept. 15).

But in order to do so, he’ll have to overcome the obstacle of household names in their primes not feeling the inspiration to suit up for him and their country. As of the “no thanks” from former Duke basketball sharpshooter J.J. Redick on Friday, 11 is the number of players to have cut their own names from the list of guys who will be trying to make the final 12-man roster.

The notable superstars to have dropped out are Anthony Davis, James Harden, and Damian Lillard.

Ouch.

Now, they have all had excuses, but most of those excuses were, well, just excuses.

One notable boneheaded decision by USA Basketball’s decision-makers was to disrespectfully doubt former Duke basketball alien Zion Williamson. They essentially told ESPN’s main attraction — he’s been so ever since the dunk from the foul line at a casual shootaround in Canada last August — that he would start on the USA Select Team with what would have been a chance to prove he’s worthy of playing for the main attraction.

Naturally, telling the main attraction they aren’t sure if he should even be a part of the main attraction led to said main attraction — and his blessed-to-have-the-attraction New Orleans Pelicans — using as an excuse not to play a small boo-boo to his knee about three weeks ago.

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Bet the USA big wigs wish they had Zion on the A-team right about now; if Coach K was the head coach, rest assured he would be.

Instead, the top names at the training camp running throughout August will be B-listers such as Kyle Lowry, Andre Drummond, Julius Randle, Khris Middleton, and Kemba Walker to go along with a few young chaps such as Kyle Kuzma and former one-and-done Blue Devil Jayson Tatum. The lesser talents include the likes of Brook Lopez, P.J. Tucker, and, as of Friday, former Duke basketball big man Mason Plumlee.

Yikes.

The same obstacle stymied the two head coaches from 2000-04, Larry Brown and George Karl, as they combined to lose six games at the 2002 World Championship and 2004 Olympics — a far cry from USA Basketball’s undefeated run through the ’90s when the idea of top professionals playing in international competition was still fresh and hip.

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To put this all into perspective, three years ago in Rio De Janeiro, folks were freaking out after LeBron James and a few others decided not to play, leaving a Team USA only boasting guys like Kevin Durant, Klay Thompson, Jimmy Butler, DeMar DeRozan, Paul George, Draymond Green, DeMarcus Cousins, DeAndre Jordan, and former Duke basketball guard Kyrie Irving.

Imagine how excited present-day USA fans would be to see the above group in action starting in about five weeks — assuming all were healthy, of course.

The solution?

In the short-term, we just have to go with what we’ve got: a five-time NBA champion head coach who hopefully has a trick up his sleeve — exactly like the one he has shown time and again in San Antonio — to fool a team of secondary options into becoming a team of champions.

Hopefully, the guys will adopt an underdog mentality while embracing the privilege to play for their country — and thereby ultimately prove the headline of this article dead wrong.

We’ll see, but this writer doesn’t see them bringing the top prize home from China this time around — not against the ever-growing threat that is international basketball.

After the World Cup, though, this lifelong Duke basketball junkie suggests USA Basketball move on from NBA head coaches as head coaches of NBA players when they’re playing for Team USA.

And try picking as the USA head coach for the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo whichever college coach at the time is the winningest among those who have served their country.

Oops, the answer would still be Captain America.

Welp, Coach K has already done his national duties.

Guess we’ll just have to agree to let the superhero leader focus solely on fulfilling his Dukie duties — that way, he may not decide to call it quits in Durham until at least a few decades from now.

ALSO READ: Three reasons Duke wins 2020 NCAA Tournament 

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