Team USA walked away from the 2024 Paris Olympics with a hardfought, but well-earned gold medal in basketball. They boasted an incredible collection of NBA talent and entered the games as massive favorites. But the competition was stiff along the way and they had to pull out the final two games in the 4th quarter against Serbia and France.
Despite winning the gold medal, the result wasn’t overly impressive and they hardly established dominance. In fact, in the two performances by Nikola Jokic for Team Serbia, he had the Americans on the ropes and even in a losing effort, further established his legacy and his standing as the best player in the world.
Along with Jokic’s brilliance, was USA’s ineptitude in many ways. With the players they had, they should have been able to win more easily and by wider margins rather than having to sweat it out. This was apparent to at least one basketball Hall-of-Famer as Oscar Robertson put Team USA and head coach Steve Kerr on blast.
Oscar Robertson calls out Steve Kerr for his poor coaching
On a recent episode of the All the Smoke Podcast with Stephen Jackson and Matt Barnes, Robertson came on the show and questioned Coach Kerr’s tactics. He ranted about how the team kept switching smaller players onto Jokic, allowing him to bludgeon them inside repeatedly. Said Robertson:
“They don't slide ! Jokic made a fool out of USA all because that guard didn't fight through to get to his man… why am I gonna go inside to play through the 7-foot-4 guy and USA kept doing that and Jokic kept scoring bad. What was the coach doing, Kerr?"
The 85-year-old legend retired in 1974 after making 11 All-NBA teams, winning the MVP Award in 1964, and the championship in 1971. He was also the first player to average a triple-double over the course of an entire season.
Robertson is right; Kerr was bad and Jokic was the star
Usually when former players criticize the current product it comes off as petty whining, but The Big O is pretty much spot-on here. Kerr did a poor job of coaching the team, mismanaging his rotations, and employing questionable tactics on both ends. He leaned far too much on his older players to the point where it almost cost the team.
Ultimately, he got bailed out by his superstar players, but Robertson hit the nail on the head; Jokic was the star of the tournament due to the way he owned Team USA. A better, more creative coach should have been able to utilize the talent in a way that would have rendered Jokic’s excellence more meaningless.