USA Men Arrive In Spain

Aug. 18, 2010 • Madrid, Spain

• Photos

After a great week of training and exhibition games in New York, the USA Men's World Championship Team loaded up the buses outside the team hotel Monday afternoon and rolled towards Newark for the flight to Madrid, Spain.   As we arrived into Newark airport, Mother Nature decided she would have a hand in our already lengthy trip.  Immediately after the traveling party loaded onto the airplane around 5 p.m. ET, the skies opened and a large storm hit the area delaying our flight.  What was supposed to be a 6 p.m. departure turned into a 7:45 p.m. departure but alas we did take off and were on our way.  

As part of the trip, we had to make two stops along the way to fuel the aircraft, one in Goose Bay, Newfoundland, and one in Reykjavik, Iceland.  Although it added to the length of the trip, it was interesting as many in the traveling party had never been to those countries.   At around 2 p.m. Madrid time, our plane touched down in the great country of Spain.  In all, the team was on the plane for about 14 hours, much too long for most of our liking but the best news is that we were in Europe and the countdown to the World Championships was on!!!

After a 30-minute bus trip to the hotel, the team settled in for a late afternoon lunch and then rested for a bit until their 6 p.m. meeting prior to practice.  After the long trip, Coach K and his staff wanted to get the players to the arena just to loosen the legs up and get the cobwebs out. The gym was a very unique place as it is normally a tennis facility but it was set up for basketball similar to what has been done the last few years at some tennis facilities in the United States.   It was pretty clear by the build of the place, that it will get very loud for the two games this weekend, especially when the USA faces home country Spain on Sunday!  

After going through a 90-minute practice of mostly shooting and full court running drills, the team returned to the hotel for a team dinner in front of the TV while watching some of a "friendly" between the Spanish National Team and the Brazil National Team which was being played across town in Madrid.   Most of us were still dragging from the trip and were going to make it an early night but tomorrow starts three full days of practice before the friendlies against Brazil and Spain this weekend.

We sat down with several members of the team to find out what they thought about the travel day, today's practice and other items -- including sending shouts out to Rudy Gay on his birthday! Read what they had to say and see for yourself in our videos below!

Krzyzewski

Mike Krzyzewski, USA Head Coach (Duke University)
Talk about the day of travel and not letting things bother you in your preparation:
We’re not together for a long time so you can’t let anything interrupt your preparation for the World Championship.  So if you have a delay, let’s make the most out of the delay.  You get here and you’re a little bit tired, you’re going to be tired, and we adjust. Be very flexible in what we’re doing.  No one should let anything linger. If there’s something that’s a little bit wrong, you can’t get the electricity on in your room, call somebody.  Your bag didn’t get up to your room, don’t let anything get to you because every problem can be solved and the guys responded to that.  Tonight we just wanted to get a sweat, get shots up, get familiar, and they did more than that.  They just wanted to stay here.  That’s good stuff, this is a good group.

We explained to the team the purpose to being here is one, adjust to the time difference; and then to have training camp, we’re still having training camp, and then the exhibition games in that order.  And then by the time we get to Greece and then eventually Istanbul we’re going to be in this time zone, we’re going to have a really good indication of who we are and we’ll have a chance to improve during the pool play.  It’s just we’re trying to do things in stages.  Attitude is the most important and they’ve had a great attitude throughout.

What’s on your development list?
I think transition in both offense and defense.  We need more movement when we’re coming down the court so we don’t just stop.  Our defense is good in the half court, really good, but in the full court sometimes are bigs are coming too far back and in the international game all the bigs shoot so we have to fan out a little bit. Offensively, we haven’t worked really on our half court execution like we have with our defense so for the next couple of days we’re going to really work on half court offense.

You’ve been saying this is a team that has to continue to get better every day until the end of the World Championship.
Yes, each day and even when pool play ends we have a little bit of time, so really the training camp never ends.  Hopefully by the time we get to the medal round we’ll be at our best.  It’s like trying to bring our team along every day.  That’s why the scrimmage (versus China) and the exhibition game (versus France) in Madison Square Garden were good for us.  We learned a lot and we played pretty well.  We need to play better than that but we played very well considering we have had just eight practices and first game and all that kind of stuff.  That’s how I’ve looked at it, not to think you’re going to get everything in right away, that’s just not gonna happen.  That’s where the other teams have an advantage over us in that they’ve been together. Like Spain, some of those guys have been together for 10 years.  We can’t do that, but you can try and do it as well as you can with this group and these guys.

Love

Kevin Love (Minnesota Timberwolves)
What did you do on the plane?
I don’t remember because I slept the whole time.  Whatever anybody else was doing, I have no idea.

Is this your first time overseas?
This is the first time.  First time.   I never really even left the country … well, we’ll say North America … I mean, Toronto and Vancouver I have … but other than that I haven’t been out of the country at all.

On his trip so far:
I got my first stamp in Spain in my passport … it looks good in there … first one says Madrid right there … has a plane on it and everything.

Do you know what to expect?
Not really.  I just know it’s a beautiful city.   I’m just super excited tobe here … obviously overseas.  To be playing basketball too, it’s going to be a great experience for me and very humbling as well.

Anything you’re looking forward to doing or seeing?
I’d love to see some bull fighting.  I mean, the different food, the different culture, I think that’s going to be the biggest thing for me.

Like I said, I was sheltered growing up but just being able to get out a little bit and experience difference countries will be very cool.

Was it good to get to practice after a long travel day?
Absolutely.  We were on the plane for too long … us big guys need to stretch out our legs a little bit and get moving so it felt good to get out here this first day and get some shots up, get our legs under us so tomorrow we’ll be ready to go.

Rondo

Rajon Rondo (Boston Celtics)
What did you guys do on the plane for 16 hours?
We slept and watched movies. A lot of people just slept the whole way.

Aside from Argentina with the 2005 USA U21 World Championship Team, have you done any other international travel?
I’ve been to Spain before, I went to Barcelona a couple of years back. I think that’s pretty much it.

Were you looking forward to coming back to Spain?
Yeah, I feel like I’ll get a good welcome back. I think I put on a good performance the last time I was here.

What do you expect from the crowd here this week?
A lot of boos. We’re on the road. In the NBA you play a lot of road games. It’s not anything we’re not accustomed to, so we’ll be fine.

Was it good to get out on the court to shake of the cobwebs of the travel day?
Definitely. We got our legs warmed up, got accustomed to the time zone. We’re trying to get accustomed to the time changes as quickly as possible.

Are you glad to be in Europe for the final push towards Turkey?
Yes. I’m glad to get over here, get things settled. Just get ready.

Rose

Derrick Rose (Chicago Bulls)
What did you guys do on the plane for 16 hours?
People were just playing around with each other, cracking a lot of jokes, laughing. Some of us were sleeping the whole time. We were just trying to have fun because we knew it was going to be a long ride.

Have you done much international traveling?
The only place I ever went was to China and that was 13 hours. This was a nice little journey and something that I will never forget.

What do you think you can expect in the games here in Spain?
It’s going to be crazy. It should be fun. This arena is great. We’re definitely the underdog here and it should be exciting.

Was it good to get out on the court to shake of the cobwebs of the travel day?
Yeah. Just being out here, being able to shoot, doing something that we love doing, and that’s just playing around, playing with each other, getting a lot of shots up.

Are you looking forward to doing anything off the court in Madrid?
Shopping. Shopping and trying different foods out here. That’s about it.