Steve Kerr aiming to keep Team USA players in 'usual roles' - ESPN

PARIS — Team USA coach Steve Kerr had an indirect message for those who have been criticizing his lineup decisions during the Olympics: putting the best team on the floor doesn't always mean having the best NBA players together all at once.

«For us it's very obvious watching games that having guys in their usual roles is very helpful,» Kerr said Friday as he prepared his team for their final pool play game Saturday against Puerto Rico.

«And so it doesn't make a whole lot of sense for us to put our five leading scorers on the floor from an NBA season because those guys don't complement each other well. Just coaching basketball, it's pretty simple for us, regardless of all the noise.»

The unimpeachable 1992 Dream Team, the platinum standard by which all following national teams are judged, played eight games at the Barcelona Olympics. Hall of Fame coach Chuck Daly used six different starting lineups and only one player — Michael Jordan — started every game.

That bit of history has seemingly gotten lost in the handwringing — the noise, as Kerr referred to it — over lineup decisions after Kerr benched stars Jayson Tatum and Joel Embiid as part of game-plan decisions in wins over Serbia and South Sudan.

Kerr and his coaching staff — assistants Erik Spoelstra, Ty Lue, Mark Few and Jeff Van Gundy — have looked to balance scoring with playmaking and defense. For example, Kerr has sometimes played strong defenders like Derrick White, Jrue Holiday and Bam Adebayo alongside scoring specialists like Kevin Durant and Anthony Edwards.

«It's basketball, it really doesn't matter who starts,» said Durant, who said Friday he is comfortable coming off the bench the rest of the Olympics if that is what Kerr prefers. «It's about really who