CHICAGO (AP) – Nearly every time coach Mike Krzyzewski and USA Basketball boss Jerry Colangelo stage a reunion in their hometown, there’s plenty of backslapping, a trophy gleaming in the background and the only thing they have to protect is their cocktails. This time around, it’s about safeguarding the Olympic legacy the two built over more than a decade.
Their partnership took hold in the wake of the “Abomination in Athens,” when a U.S. team coached by Larry Brown and packed with high-maintenance, highlight-reel guys who slept through wake-up calls couldn’t rouse themselves in time for the medal round. They left the 2004 Summer Games with a consolation prize of bronze and the program’s reputation in tatters.
Colangelo, a former NBA and MLB executive and once a fine athlete in his own right, agreed to pick up the pieces on one condition: “I get to make all the rules.”
Instead of submitting the names of the players he wanted to a selection committee, Colangelo picked his own. Instead of contacting their agents to set up meetings, he called some directly and collared others as they clambered off the team bus at NBA arenas across the country. No one told him no.
Once he shaped a roster that reflected his philosophy – that the best teams are made up of complementary parts instead of just the best ones available – there was only one guy Colangelo wanted to coach them.