The head coach of Team USA Gregg Popovich talked about the international NBA players, who join their national teams.
Here is what coach Popovich told reporters prior to the game against Greece on Saturday (07/09):
“I think that our opinion has been all along that all these players from overseas that play in the NBA are obviously good players or they wouldn’t be there and Giannis is pretty special as far as good players are concerned.
But when they play for their countries, we like to say that they become superheroes. They get together and, through their relationships and their views about their game, they just form a team that – they fall in love with each other, they enjoy playing with each other.
And that goes across the board for everybody that’s in the tournament, and you can see that. A lot of them have grown up together, and a lot of them have spent a lot of time playing together, and you can see that, and it shows.
But as far as preparing, each team is obviously very different. In the NBA, you pretty much know every night the O’s and X’s of what people are going to run and that sort of thing.
But here, every team has a different take on the way they want to play, so it’s actually enjoyable and challenging at the same time because each team is a different war, a different artwork to be figured out. It makes it very interesting.”
