Basketball: Make Kerr the USA “great again”?

The focus of interest is the team from the USA, which experienced a low point four years ago when they finished seventh in the World Cup. Successful coach Steve Kerr, coach of the Golden State Warriors by day, is said to be the USA “great again” make and lead back to the world title after 2014. The big names like LeBron James, Kevin Durant or Stephen Curry are in vain in the US squad, an ensemble of youngsters should do it. The defending champion is Spain, who clearly defeated Argentina in the final in Beijing in 2019.

Kerr cannot hide the fact that a World Cup in the USA is far less important than the Olympic Games. That is also one of the reasons why numerous top stars gave the 57-year-old a basket. Since the Olympic tournament in Paris is coming up next year, some didn’t want to play through the summer before that.

Basketball as therapy

Kerr has a special relationship with Asia. The former Chicago Bulls teammate of Michael Jordan was born in Beirut, Lebanon, where his father, Malcolm Kerr, was a political scientist specializing in the Middle East. In 1984, when Steve Kerr was already studying in the USA, Malcolm Kerr was killed in an attack by militant Islamists. A shock that fundamentally changed the young man’s life. “Basketball was the only thing I could do to take my mind off what was happening”he once explained. “I didn’t know what else to do.”