USA Basketball announces Steve Kerr as next Olmpic men's coach

Steve Kerr saw everything that Gregg Popovich went through as coach of the U.S. men’s national team, saw exactly how difficult it was last summer for the Americans to emerge from the Tokyo Olympics with another gold medal.

And when he walked off the floor for the last time in Tokyo, he was drained.

It wasn’t easy, and it was just further proof that the days of U.S. cakewalks to gold are over. He decided to take the job anyway.

Kerr was formally announced as the next coach of the U.S. men’s team on Monday in San Francisco, a not-very-well-kept secret in recent weeks that the Golden State coach would be taking over for Popovich and leading the Americans - if they qualify - into the 2023 Basketball World Cup and the 2024 Paris Olympics. Kerr’s assistant coaches will be Miami Heat coach Erik Spoelstra, Phoenix Suns coach Monty Williams and Gonzaga coach Mark Few.

Williams has been an assistant before, under former U.S. coach Mike Krzyzewski. Spoelstra and Few were involved in coaching the U.S. select team, which was assembled to practice against the Olympic team, this past summer.

Kerr would be the 16th different coach to take the U.S. men into an Olympics. Of the previous 15, 13 have emerged with gold. His hiring for the job represents the first major decision by Grant Hill in his role as managing director of the men’s national team, the position he’s taking after Jerry Colangelo helped the Americans win the last four Olympic gold medals in that role.

Kerr has three NBA titles as coach of the Warriors, won five more as a player, was part of the staff that won gold at the Tokyo Games and won a senior-level gold medal for USA Basketball as a player in the 1986 World Cup.