Did Team USA have a rough start to their Olympic journey? Well, ‘rough’ can be taken as a bit of an understatement. While the star-filled NBA roster would eventually go on to secure the Gold Medal at the 2024 Paris Olympics, fans were certainly spooked in the aftermath of an exhibition game against South Sudan. If anyone thought that no significant danger could be possessed by a national team that only qualified for the Olympics in 2024, the East African country certainly surprised them by losing by a close margin of 101-100! The players from Team USA would certainly have been pleased with the close shave, but head coach Steve Kerr had other thoughts in mind.

Earlier today, The Shop podcast released their pre-recorded interview with now three-time gold medallist LeBron James. When discussing the practice sessions that took place prior to the main games, the 39-year-old revealed that he and his roster even underwent a rigorous session in London, during the Exhibition series. Winning against South Sudan by just a one-point margin did not earn the players any brownie points with Stever Kerr, as LeBron revealed, “Coach wasn’t happy with our performance the first time we played South Sudan, so he kind of got at us, and we went at each other during practice.”

Team USA faced a harmful setback in the initial part of the South Sudan matchup, with missed shots and turnovers occurring repeatedly. By the time the first half concluded, the roster had successfully made only 1 out of 12 three-pointers. With South Sudan taking the score up to 58-42, hope seemed to be lost for a brief moment. Fortunately, both LeBron James and Stephen Curry stepped up in the latter half, with the NBA All-Time Scorer making a majority of his 23 points, 6 rebounds, and 6 assists within that time. As a result, the third quarter saw the US squad scoring 16-0 to even the odds. With both teams tied and eight seconds remaining on the clock, LeBron made a crucial layup and took the one-point lead from which South Sudan could not recover.

The blame was quick to land on Steve Kerr after the very, very narrow victory. After all, this was the second time that Team USA had come close to breaking their winning streak, with Australia having given them enough trouble at the previous exhibition game. Fox Sports radio hosts Steve Hartman and Monse Bolanos even outright stated “That was embarrassing. Honestly, if it were me, I would fire Steve Kerr right now. His mismanagement of this team is already evident.”

The coach himself stepped up and took responsibility, claiming that “I did not do a great job, I think we did not focus enough on of what they are capable of, and that’s on me.” However, through LeBron James’s recent revelation, it is made clear that the head coach simply did not want to apologize, but also ensure that such an incident did not occur again.

While any reaction from Steve Kerr might have been reasonable, it may have contributed to an alleged rise in tension in the locker room. Such a scenario would make it a second instance of this nature, right after the still-intense Jayson Tatum-Steve Kerr issue.

Does Jayson Tatum continue to feel haunted by Steve Kerr’s snub?
Going into the 2024 Paris Olympics, everyone would have expected Jayson Tatum, and even the player himself, to have a prominent role on the roster. After all, who wouldn’t want to put the recent NBA champion at the forefront? Unfortunately, in Team USA’s six games, the Celtics star was benched for two of them, including the Semi-Finals. The 71 minutes he accumulated in his national team’s gold medal run was half of what LeBron James (147) and Stephen Curry (140) had collected. With Steve Kerr’s decision to limit the Celtics star’s minutes earning him criticism from several sides of the NBA world, Tatum himself did not choose to stay silent on the issue.

In an interview with The New York Times, the 26-year-old revealed that it took time to adjust to the reality of the situation. It didn’t help that his snub had become a prominent topic of conversation in the NBA world by stating, “You see all the tweets and the people on the podcasts and people on TV giving their opinion on whether they thought it was a good decision or it was an outrageous decision or whatever. Obviously, I wanted to contribute more, and I’ve never been in (this) situation. I started playing basketball at 3 (years of age) at the YMCA, and I’ve never not played, so it was different and it was challenging.”

While the player did not choose to name Steve Kerr, he highlighted his mindset in the aftermath of the Olympics by stating, “I wasn’t moping around. I didn’t have an attitude. I wasn’t angry at the world. I stayed ready and did what was asked of me and I won a gold medal, right?”

Despite a perfect streak that led Team USA to the Gold Medal, the locker room of the team was not without some intense moments. With Steve Kerr not returning to lead Team USA during the next FIBA World Cup and Olympics, things may take a different tone.