Mutual respect between LeBron and Kerr reaches new heights with Team USA

Mutual respect between LeBron and Kerr reaches new heights with Team USA originally appeared in NBC Sports Bay Area

LAS VEGAS – Greatness has to be felt on a personal level to be fully understood – especially the process required to make the extraordinary become routine.

Warriors coach Steve Kerr, who leads Team USA men’s basketball for the final time at the 2024 Paris Summer Olympics, knows he was fortunate to witness greatness in his playing career, being coached by players like Lute Olsen, Cotton Fitzsimmons, Lenny Wilkens, Phil Jackson and Gregg Popovich. Kerr also played alongside some of basketball’s herculean heroes such as Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen, Shaquille O’Neal, Tim Duncan, David Robinson, Manu Ginobili and Tony Parker.

During the last decade of Golden State’s dynasty, Kerr watched from the sidelines as Steph Curry, Kevin Durant, Klay Thompson, Draymond Green and Andre Iguodala helped bring four championship parades to the Bay Area. He knows the work that went into becoming multiple champions, and he arrived just as Curry began to evolve from a baby-faced three-point shooter with skinny arms into the kind of superstar who will be remembered by future generations.

Now, after years of competing against each other, Kerr has another opportunity to do something he never imagined: coach LeBron James. And he can no longer believe what he sees.

Not because of James’ talent, which keeps him behind a man and a man alone when making lists of the best to ever pick up a basketball. But how he approaches work the second his alarm clock goes off.

“I was impressed with how hard he trains,” Kerr said Saturday after the first practice of Team USA training camp at UNLV. “And I went [assistant coach Ty Lue] It is [assistant coach Erik Spoelstra] and I said, ‘Is this normal?’ They said, ‘Every day, every day.’ To Spo I said, ‘And when did you catch him?’ Spo said, ‘Every day. Every exercise, every step by step.’”

James will turn 40 in December. Nicknamed King James and the Chosen One for obvious reasons, the NBA’s all-time leading scorer, who was born in the same hospital as Curry in Akron, Ohio, continues to dive, duck and dodge the many obstacles Father Time has thrown at him. his path after 21 years as a professional.

Curry, 36, and James are the two oldest players on Team USA’s roster, which features five players in their 20s and seven players 30 or older. They are also shining examples of everything it takes to one day be inducted into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame.

Anthony Edwards is the youngest player on the team at 22 years old and may have the best chance to be the next face of basketball, starting in the immediate future. He also barely made it through a workout that Curry regularly does before the 2020 draft in front of Kerr and a Warriors squad. Saturday began a summer school session that Edwards and everyone else can watch as they watch every move Curry and James make on and off the court to have the American flag behind them atop the medal podium in Paris.

“I’m used to seeing Steph,” Kerr said. “I think there’s a reason why these guys are two of the best of all time. The strength with which they train translates into the way they play in games and the way their teams play, because they are the ones who lead.”

Kerr and Curry have faced James on the NBA’s biggest stage in four consecutive Finals, with the Warriors emerging as champions on three occasions and James killing what seemed like an impossibility in 2016. All three talked over the summer about what it will take to use a gold medal around his neck and how the three can feed each other.

Competitiveness is what earns your respect. They wouldn’t have it any other way.

“There was always mutual respect, obviously,” James said. “We are both competitors. He is a competitor as a coach and he was a competitor as a player. I’m a competitor as a player and we’ve had the same goals in mind every year for a while now – and that’s lifting the Larry O’Brien trophy.

“But it’s mostly mutual respect and admiration. I’m happy to be on the same side as him now, and I’m also happy to be on the same side as his point guard, with Steph here too, so that’s going to be a lot of fun.”

Basketball as a whole has made a complete change across the world since the 1992 Dream Team took the game to unimaginable places. There will be no players from other countries bowing down and asking for autographs from Steph, LeBron or any of Team USA’s stars.

If everything goes according to plan, however, we will all be witnesses to an unforgettable show made for the big screen. Not without James and Curry, the team’s two elder statesmen, making every second count.

“I feel incredibly honored to coach LeBron, and it’s definitely a lot better coaching him than coaching against him,” Kerr said. “I can tell you that.”

Ask James the same question and it’s clear the same thing will be said about now being on the same side as Curry and Kerr rather than watching them celebrate their loss to second place.

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