Basketball

Same sport, different game: Popovich and Co. prep for World Cup with most detailed scouting operation yet


SHANGHAI — The Czech Republic likes to run and shoot 3s. Terrific offensive team. Huge starting lineup, with both guards at least 6-5. Tomas Satoransky is the point guard. He’s 6-7 and good, but, you don’t know him. He plays differently for his national team than he does for the Washington Wizards. Better be ready to go.

This, more or less, was the message delivered Saturday morning to Team USA about its first opponent in the FIBA World Cup. The messenger was Steve Kerr, lead assistant to Gregg Popovich. The game is Sunday night in Shanghai (8:30 in the morning if you live in the East in the U.S.).

The information was compiled by Kerr, Jeff Van Gundy, who is Team USA’s point man for opponent scouting, and by Will Hardy, a longtime assistant to Popovich on the Spurs, who creates the video clips for the Americans to digest.

Team USA has never approached an Olympics or a World Cup with as sophisticated a scouting system as it has now. A cynic…





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