Pumpkin2022
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Team USA plans to start LeBron James at the Paris Olympics and use him as a point forward, with Stephen Curry playing primarily off the ball, The Athletic's Joe Vardon reported Friday, citing two sources with USA Basketball. The coaching staff will get its first look at this in Las Vegas, where training camp will begin on Saturday and Team USA will face Canada in an exhibition game next Wednesday. One of the many virtues of Team USA's stacked roster is that everybody can create offense. After stops, coach Steve Kerr will surely empower the team to push the ball and look for easy scoring opportunities, rather than looking for a traditional "point guard" to set things up. The implication here, though, is that, at least with the starting group, James will more often than not be the one who brings the ball up in the halfcourt. Which, sure! I mean, does it really matter who initiates the offense? Another one of this team's virtues is that everybody -- James included, thanks to his enormously improved spot-up shooting -- can also play off the ball. Kerr is the guy who unleashed Curry as the most dangerous off-ball player in the history of the sport, so it's not surprising that he wants to use Curry this way. It's not surprising, either, that Kerr wants to take advantage of James' ability to read the game, put people in the right places and target mismatches. A word of caution, though: Don't take this to mean that Curry is not going to run any pick-and-rolls.