This is really great news if you’re a fan of USA Basketball and always wanted to see the team win by 50 instead of 40 during the international competition — LeBron James wants to play in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and would like to play for coach Gregg Popovich.
In an interview with USA Today, LeBron said, “It would be pretty amazing to be able to actually play for the greatest NBA coach of all time.”
Popovich takes over for Mike Krzyzewski during the next Olympic cycle. When the 2020 Games begin, LeBron will be 35 years old, so it’s not a sure thing he will be physically capable of playing at his current level. But if his body allows it, LeBron is pretty pumped about the idea of playing for Popovich.
“First off all Coach K and Gregg Popovich are two my favorites of all time,” James said. “To be able to play for Coach K in the Olympics and world championships and to be able to go against Coach Pop in the NBA, it would be a treat. Obviously my body has to continue to be in the form that it is today four years from now.”
“I’ve studied a lot from the outside looking in,” James said of Popovich during All-Star weekend in Toronto in February. “I can’t be there on a day-to-day basis. I wish I could. I believe he’s one of the great basketball minds that we’ve ever had in this game, and I wish I could be around him every day to kind of just pick his brain and see what he does, what he thinks. I believe I think the game, I’m not going to say in a similar fashion because he has more experience than me, but I think I have a high basketball IQ, too.”
So that’s something to store in your memory banks when it becomes time to care about the summer Olympics four years from now, when LeBron’s presence could mean the difference between beating Japan 123-48 instead of 118-51.
(Via USA Today)
