Joe Viray takes a first look at Steve Kerr coaching Team USA

Your Golden State Warriors' head coach is now the nation's head coach.

Eric Apricot says: Joe Viray has been a friend and contributor to DNHQ since the beginning. He was part of our dream team at the height of GSOM. I am hopeful that this piece will be the start of regular pieces from him. Follow him at @joeviraynba on Threads and Twitter-X.

How will Steve Kerr coach a different team?

Steve Kerr has been a head coach for nine years — all of them for the Golden State Warriors and, more importantly, all of them having an all-time-great talent in Stephen Curry.

Even if Kerr is without a doubt one of the best coaches in the league in terms of Xs and Os and in terms of managing players, it’s only natural to wonder how Kerr would manage coaching a team without a transcendent force on his team.

We’ve all asked that question of successful coaches in the past:

• Would Phil Jackson have as much success if he didn’t have Michael Jordan on the Bulls and Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant on the Lakers?

• Would Gregg Popovich have the reputation he has if he didn’t draft Tim Duncan?

• Would Pat Riley have won as much if he didn’t have Magic Johnson and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and, later on, Dwyane Wade?

Of course, the obvious answer to all of the above would probably have been “no.” All coaches — even the good ones — need transcendent players to help their team win championships. That doesn’t take away from their talent and pedigree as coaches — it’s plainly a fact of basketball life.

The same rings true for Kerr — without Curry, he probably wouldn’t have won four titles as a coach. But also consider that his predecessor — Mark Jackson — virtually had the same personnel to work with in Curry, Klay Thompson, Draymond Green, Andre Iguodala, and Andrew Bogut.

Jackson did manage to turn the squad into a defensive powerhouse but failed to maximize the offensive talent he had. Kerr not only maintained the defensive culture established by Jackson — he took the potential energy stored within the Splash Brothers and transformed it into one heck of a kinetic explosion.

Kerr deserves tons of credit for taking such talents and shaping a system that best fit their skill sets. Now that he’s the head coach of Team USA, it’s not far-fetched to expect that he’ll do the same for a bunch of talented but young NBA stars (and a couple of high-level role players).

Unlike his time with the Warriors, however, he only has six weeks with this particular squad and only had four days of training camp in Las Vegas to install schemes and concepts. There’s little-to-no-time for the kind of complexity that Kerr is so fond of — which leaves him with no choice but to simplify things a bit.

One game against a team that isn’t as good as some of the competition they’ll be facing in the FIBA Basketball World Cup isn’t a perfect measuring stick by all means, but it still provides glimpses of Kerr’s approach and philosophy.

Defensive Switching

Most iterations of Team USA post Redeem Team have forgone the three-year commitment and have been hastily assembled weeks prior to the actual tournaments, whether it be the World Cup or the Olympics. As such, defensive principles and schemes have been mostly comprised of one concept: heavy switching.

Switching almost everything isn’t a complicated scheme to install, especially if you have the length and height on the roster to make it feasible. Kerr’s early iterations of the Dynasty Warriors had the personnel to switch everything; there’s an argument it was them who jumpstarted the switching revolution in the NBA.

This Team USA roster definitely has the personnel to switch — but it comes with potential risks.

Puerto Rico’s #28 (Ismael Romero) sets a drag screen for #3 (Tremont Waters), which triggers the switch: Bobby Portis on Waters and Austin Reaves on Romero. Portis as a switch-big guarding quicker guards on the perimeter is already not ideal (more on that later), but what’s more of a concern is Reaves guarding the bigger Romero down low.

Ultimately, Reaves can’t properly seal Romero and can’t deny him the angle, allowing the easy layup underneath the rim.

Having Portis as the backup center to Jaren Jackson Jr. — the reigning Defensive Player of the Year and one of the league’s premier rim protectors and switch bigs — is a tall task. The drop-off in defensive versatility and overall quality from Jackson to Portis is apparent, especially when they opt to switch ballscreens like the one above.

And also, like the one during this possession:

Reaves tries to draw the pass-and-crash offensive foul (which I don’t think exists in FIBA play — take note, NBA!) but doesn’t get the whistle. But what forces Reaves to rotate in the first place is the breakdown at the point of attack. Portis switching onto the faster Waters is disadvantageous; better teams will take note of Team USA’s tendency to switch everything — even guards onto bigs — and target the weakest links.

Jaren Jackson Jr. Defensive Versatility

With Jackson on the floor, however, switching everything becomes more tenable. But it’s not just Jackson’s switchability that Kerr aims to take advantage of; it’s his overall versatility as a defender who can play multiple coverages at high levels.

Jackson as a conventional drop big is intriguing. It allows him to be in better position to protect the paint, which is arguably his strongest suit as a defender.

Last season, teams shot just 46.9% against Jackson at the rim — first among 51 players who played in at least 49 games (60% of the regular season) and defended at least four shots at the rim per game. The next player on that list was Brook Lopez and his 50.2% mark — a 3.3% difference.

Jackson plays “high” drop coverage (practically the same kind of drop coverage the Boston Celtics played on Curry during the 2022 NBA Finals) on Waters. He masterfully navigates the middle ground between the ball-handler and the big man; he meets the roll virtually at the same time as the pass and recovers on time to block the layup.

Jackson’s ability to switch from contain mode in the pick-and-roll to recovery mode back toward the roll man is uncanny:

Jackson will be the anchor of this Team USA defense, but he’ll be supported by a bunch of smart team defenders who can perform several functions defensively: navigate/fight over screens, rotate, switch, etc.

Toolsy defensive players on Kerr’s roster — those with the unholy combination of defensive knowhow and physical traits — can give opposing teams nightmares.

It also allows Kerr to occasionally throw out coverages that isn’t just switching. If he deems an opposing ballhandler dangerous enough, he can sic 6-foot-6 tall Mikal Bridges (with a 7-foot wingspan) and 6-foot-8 tall Brandon Ingram (with a 7-foot-3 wingspan) onto them through aggressive traps and blitzes.

Pick and Roll

If Kerr’s forced to simplify defensive concepts, he’ll be even more compelled to simplify offensive schemes in the half-court. As such, expect plenty more spread pick-and-roll possessions than what he already runs with the Warriors (i.e., not as much in the regular season but more during the playoffs) with this squad.

The increase in pick-and-roll usage will be apparent especially when Kerr has Tyrese Haliburton — a rising star and quickly becoming a premier playmaker in the pick-and-roll — on his roster. Haliburton’s ability to read progressions and make high-level reads off of ballscreens makes it easier to shape a pick-and-roll-based half-court offense around him.

0.5 seconds

But just because Kerr is constrained by a lack of prep time, it doesn’t mean he won’t attempt to impart some of his more known offensive philosophies. His renowned “0.5-seconds” concept that encourages ball and personnel movement isn’t a complicated concept and provides a holistic benefit to every kind of basketball player.

It’s clear that Kerr is preaching an emphasis on movement and is discouraging his players from letting the ball stick to one player for more than several seconds. It was apparent during the team’s scrimmages in camp:

Which was also apparent in-game against Puerto Rico:

The decisive nature of the passing above stood out. After Puerto Rico hedges the ballscreen, Jalen Brunson immediately swings it to Bridges on the wing, who then quickly swings the ball to Ingram in the corner, who’s left wide open due to his man being forced to help on Jackson’s roll.

Pin-in Screens

Another concept Kerr is trying to install: pin-in screens.

Watch Brunson in the possession below relocate to the left corner after giving up the ball, only for Ingram to forget to set a pin-in screen:

Later on, Reaves attacks a hard corner close-out and goes all the way to the rim for a layup — made possible by a Cam Johnson pin-in screen:

I don’t think Kerr will have to call many set plays, opting to impart his concepts and letting the team create their own flow using them. However, Kerr will most definitely draw up simple but effective sets to begin games and halves, out of timeouts, and whenever there’s an opportunity to create something in the halfcourt out of dead-ball situations.

One particular set play he calls “Elbow” (due to him touching his own elbow whenever he calls the play out) stood out against Puerto Rico:

Upcoming Games

There’s plenty more exhibition games to go for Team USA against much tougher competition, namely:

• vs. Slovenia (August 12)

• vs. Spain (August 13)

• vs. Greece (August 18)

• vs. Germany (August 20)

It’ll be intriguing to watch if Kerr’s principles hold up against some of the best — and exponentially more talent laden — European teams.