Los Angeles Lakers All-NBA combo forward LeBron James is leaving quite an impression on his Team USA head coach Steve Kerr, according to Aris Barkas of Eurohoops. The 6-foot-9 superstar has had a terrific run with the undefeated club thus far through the group round of the Paris Olympics.
James is averaging 14.3 points (on a stellar 64 percent field goal shooting rate), 7.3 dimes, and 6.7 boards across Team USA’s three pool play victories. Team USA is beating the opposition by an average of 24 points a game.
“It’s crazy, one of the best things about this trip for me has been to see LeBron behind the scenes, see the preparation, see the focus, getting a picture of why he is who he is,” Kerr enthused.
“It’s just amazing to watch him. He loves the game so much,” Kerr added. “He loves the work. He loves his teammates. There’s an energy and a joy to LeBron that just sort of spreads through the locker room and so he’s obviously one of the very best all-time players but it’s it goes so far beyond one thing. It’s just everything, the whole package, he’s just brilliant.”
Next up for James and Kerr is a meeting with Team Brazil in the quarterfinal round of the Olympics. Eight teams remain in the Olympic tournament. Team USA is the No. 1 overall seed, but could face some serious problems with hyperathletic Team Australia, stacked Team Canada, jumbo-sized Team France, and 2023 FIBA World Cup champs Team Germany.
Kerr noted that Team USA is now familiar with most of the remaining squads, having squared off against them either in the club’s five exhibition games or the team’s five pool play bouts — although, notably, the Americans have yet to play Team Brazil. They’ll see them on Tuesday.
“Yeah, I mean we’ve seen almost everybody,” Kerr said. “We haven’t seen Brazil though, and that’s our focus. The other teams, we saw Australia, Serbia, twice Germany, they’re all excellent teams well coached and but Brazil is our focus. So we’ve got to be ready. I know they made 18 threes yesterday, they’re the best offensive-rebounding team in the tournament.”
Only one current NBA player, Golden State Warriors forward Gui Santos, is on the current Team Brazil roster, but that doesn’t mean the U.S. is ready to just look past its next opponent.
