Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Team USA Basketball

  • Kevin Durant takes the floor as Jerry Colangelo (left) and Mike Krzyzewski watch during the USA Basketball Showcase game Saturday at the Thomas & Mack Center.
    Colangelo gets basketball ‘fix’ from U.S. hoops squad
    In the alley behind his home on 22nd Street in Hungry Hill, on the south side of Chicago, someone tossed 7-year-old Jerry Colangelo a basketball. “Just the smell of that ball meant so much to me,” he says of that moment in 1946. “It was the beginning of a love affair. Been that way ever since.”
  •  Joey Felsenfeld, from left, Chris Leach and Ryan Bowen, all of Boulder City, work as ball boys for the US National Team mini-camp at Valley High School in Las Vegas.
    Experience of a lifetime for high school basketball players
    Boulder CIty High basketball players Joey Felsenfeld, Chris Leach and Ryan Bowen worked the last three days as ball boys for the U.S. national team during its mini-camp in Las Vegas.
  • Rudy Gay hits a jumper over Kevin Durant during the USA Basketball Showcase game Saturday at the Thomas & Mack Center.
    Grizzlies forward battles for spot on national team
    It wasn’t just a middle-of-the-summer pick-up basketball game with some friends and a few acquaintances to Rudy Gay. Saturday night at the Thomas & Mack Center, the former Connecticut star and forward for the Memphis Grizzlies showed how much he wants to be part of the U.S. senior national team.
  • Kevin Durant of the Oklahoma City Thunder practices in the 2009 U.S. National Team mini-camp at Valley High School in Las Vegas on Thursday.
    Players clamoring to play for the red, white and blue on Team USA
    Jerry Colangelo and Mike Krzyzewski and Kobe Bryant and LeBron James made wearing the red, white and blue cool again, and it helped that those colors have been trimmed in gold since August. Colangelo assembled the U.S. national basketball squad, coached by Duke boss Mike Krzyzewski, that defeated Spain for the title at the Olympics last year in Beijing. It took a few years, but young elite players are now clamoring to be a part of Team USA and play with Bryant, James, Dwyane Wade and Carmelo Anthony.
  • Anthony Randolph Jr. parlayed a blistering NBA Summer League performance into a spot on the U.S. national basketball team.
    Randolph reports for duty — on U.S. national basketball team
    Anthony Randolph Jr. got the call to serve his country the other day and quickly called his parents. Anthony Sr. and Crystal served in the U.S. Army. “They both cried,” said Junior, who parlayed a blistering NBA Summer League performance into a spot on the U.S. national basketball team.
  • Several players from the Boulder City High basketball program attended summer camp at Duke, where Eagles' assistant coach John Balistere helps run the defensive station for Blue Devils coach Mike Krzyzewski. The children spent time in Krzyzewski's office and posed for a photo. Pictured, from left, are Nate Hafen, Krzyzewski, Caleb Bailey, Tyson Tenney, Michael Walker, Cade Delangis, Robbie Jackson and Balistere.
    Boulder City coach has special bond with Duke basketball
    Boulder City High assistant basketball coach John Balistere has worked Duke's summer camp the last eight years. His relationship with Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski opened the door for Boulder City players to work as ball boys last summer for the Krzyzewski-coached national team when they trained at Valley High.
  • Colangelo looking forward to Vegas mini-camp
    Jerry Colangelo left a Phoenix barbershop Thursday afternoon with a spring in his step, but not because he was just a tad lighter. The architect of USA Basketball has been gliding since Team USA captured Olympic gold in China last summer.
  • Team USA likely to keep calling Las Vegas home
    Odds are that Jerry Colangelo will return to manage the U.S. national basketball team and that Team USA will continue to use Las Vegas as its summer training site.
  • When U.S. Olympic team members Jason Kidd, left, Kobe Bryant, center, and Dwyane Wade weren't playing blackjack, shopping for Ferrari merchandise or enjoying Las Vegas' other entertainment options, they found time for a little basketball.
    Summer is basketball season in Vegas
    A guy walked by the high-roller lounge at Wynn the other night, with his four kids in tow, and stopped in his tracks when he saw who was playing blackjack at the $500-minimum table.
  • Kobe Bryant of the Los Angeles Lakers dribbles the ball during a U.S. national team practice last month at Cox Pavilion. Lately the team, on orders from coach Mike Krzyzewski, has been practicing defending the pick-and-roll play.
    Team USA knows its Achilles’ heel
    Greece, Spain, Yugoslavia, Argentina, Lithuania and Puerto Rico are not the words around Team USA, despite beating the Americans in recent major international tournaments. No, the dirty words are the ones in pick-and-roll.
  • Team USA's Canada tune-up won’t be much to talk a-boot
    Our Olympic basketball team is going to play Canada at the Thomas & Mack Center on Friday night in an exhibition game that might be interesting only if the Canadians were allowed to play on skates and Wayne Gretzky weren’t busy.
  • A worker adds the finishing touches to a building at the Olympic Green on Monday in Beijing, where U.S. basketball players will bid for redemption on the world stage.
    It’s U.S. against the world
    Doesn’t FIBA watch its own sport? The international governing body of basketball lists the United States atop its latest world rankings. To whom it may concern in Switzerland: The Americans are mired in their worst international slump.
  • Kobe Bryant brings an appreciation of other cultures to his game. The multilingual Los Angeles Laker is on the squad that will play in Beijing.
    Culture as part of the game
    Kobe Bryant leaves the Thomas & Mack Center court after a FIBA Americas basketball game and speaks Spanish to his wife, Vanessa, whom he calls Mamacita, and two young daughters.
  • For the first time, the Americans have not played in three consecutive international finals. With that in mind, who should be a part of Team USA at the Beijing Olymics in August? The Sun offers its own 12-man roster.
    Team USA, if we were in charge
    For the first time, the Americans have not played in three consecutive international finals. With that in mind, who should be a part of Team USA at the Beijing Olymics in August? The Sun offers its own 12-man roster.
  • Vegas quietly removed from consideration
    USA Basketball nixed Las Vegas from its list of potential sites for a new headquarters in March and didn’t tell many about it.
  • Get More Stories
  • Loading More Stores...