TOKYO -- It was a hot and miserable September night in 2006 when Mike Krzyzewski was in the tunnel at the Saitama Super Arena, experiencing one of the darkest moments in his storied coaching career.
The 2006 FIBA World Championship were supposed to have been the grand restart to USA Basketball after embarrassing losses in the 2002 worlds and the 2004 Olympics. Instead, Team USA was shockingly upset by Greece in the semifinals, as the Greeks outplayed, out-executed and even outcoached the Americans.
On the slow walk toward the locker room, Krzyzewski's eyes met those of Jerry Colangelo, who'd been tapped to rebuild USA Basketball and had personally chosen the Duke coach as the man to execute his vision. Upon seeing Colangelo, all Krzyzewski could do was mouth "I'm sorry."
"That was the worst moment in my coaching career," Krzyzewski says. "I'll forever thank Jerry for having the belief in me after we lost."
Colangelo's belief in his plans -- and his support of Krzyzewski and coaching successor Gregg Popovich when things got shaky -- has been a defining quality of his time as USA Basketball's executive director.
He will retire from that role after Saturday's gold-medal game against France, wrapping up 16 highly decorated years in the job. Grant Hill will formally take over for the next cycle, leading to the 2024 Paris Games.
It's been a dream run for Colangelo, who has overseen three Olympic golds and two World Cup golds. He came in after the roughest patch in the national team's history, in which a disappointing sixth-place finish at the 2002 world championship in Indianapolis was followed by a bronze-medal finish in Athens in 2004 -- to date the only time a team of American NBA players has failed to win gold at the Olympics.
In 2005, NBA commissioner David Stern, who had spearheaded the Dream Team that changed international basketball in 1992, demanded changes to the program that would correct the negative trend.
Stern didn't want a committee, which had been in place to select players and the head coach. He wanted a strong solo voice. Colangelo, the thinking went, was a builder of sports franchises. He was four-time Executive of the Year with the Phoenix Suns. He had built a World Series champion as managing general partner of the Arizona Diamondbacks, brought the Phoenix Mercury to the WNBA and helped bring the NHL to Phoenix with the Coyotes.
What Stern saw was that USA Basketball needed an advocate, one with vision and the clout to pull it off. Someone who could lean on owners, manage egos and work agents. Someone who could take a bruise yet get players to take their call. Better yet, someone players would call.
At the time Stern reached out, Colangelo had just sold the Suns and was looking for a new challenge. Although he had won a title with the D-backs, Colangelo had fallen short of winning one with the Suns. This was a chance, Stern said, to build a team to win a championship.
"It's one thing to represent your team, your city, your country, but when you are asked to represent your country on the international stage, that's huge," Colangelo said. "And something I've always taken very, very seriously."
Although he has been demanding and has made tough decisions that occasionally ruffled feathers and turned off players, the Colangelo era has been exactly what the once-teetering program needed.
Colangelo's plan, in addition to picking highly respected Duke coach Krzyzewski to run the team, was to foster continuity. Even though players' interest in Team USA had waned and their salaries and offseason commitments were growing, Colangelo made one thing clear: If you wanted to play for Team USA (for no pay), you had to make a three-year commitment.
The team that would go to Beijing for the 2008 Olympics would not meet up for the first time that summer. It was largely made up of the same group of players who represented Team USA in the 2006 world championship and the 2007 FIBA Americas qualifying tournament.
To make the commitment more appealing to the players, Colangelo established Team USA's training base as Las Vegas and used a relationship with casino mogul Steve Wynn to set the team up with top-end accommodations.
"When I took over, I did have some control over setting the tone," Colangelo said. "I needed three-year commitments, and I got them. Be it from Carmelo [Anthony], LeBron [James], [Dwyane] Wade, Chris Paul and more."
The first year, at the worlds in Japan, resulted in another loss. The Americans froze in the moment against Greece, the roster construction lacking in an error that was supposed to have been fixed.
"We did not know the depth of change that needed to take place. Once we got beat, we knew," Krzyzewski says. "We had to stop saying this is our game. It's the international game. It was the world's game, and we needed to learn it."
After watching the young players melt under pressure, Colangelo realized he needed veteran leadership. So he persuaded leaders such as Chauncey Billups, Jason Kidd and, vitally, Kobe Bryant to join the program. After a strong showing in winning the AmeriCup in 2007, Team USA went undefeated in Beijing to win back the gold, the dramatic final against Spain serving as a coronation of the so-called Redeem Team.
That victory verified the process and began a new golden era for Team USA. A dominating victory at the world championship in Turkey in 2010 saw the Americans dominate Turkey in the title game as Kevin Durant debuted on the world stage. Another great run at the 2012 Olympics was completed with a tense victory over Spain again in the final. A conquest at the 2014 worlds, in their new iteration as the World Cup, followed.
Then, after Krzyzewski was persuaded to stay, a dominant display in 2016 in Rio included a blowout victory over Serbia to win a third straight gold medal.
"One of my favorite sayings about my life and my career and life in general: the climb up the ladder is a lot more enjoyable than the perceived arrival. Because once you're perceived at having arrived, you're a target and that's the way it goes," Colangelo said.
"If it's too hot for people in that position, then get out. I feel very comfortable with the process and what's gone on over the years since '05, what we've accomplished. It's a lot of gold medals. Not just the Olympics but the worlds. And the program that was built, the culture that was put in place, all of those things are very positive for the future of USA Basketball."
This last run has been a challenge. A change to the international schedule, moving the World Cup to be played in a two-year window next to each Olympics, altered the multi-summer commitment rhythm Colangelo had put in place, as did Krzyzewski's retirement and the transition to Popovich as coach.
As a result, many stars skipped playing in the 2019 World Cup in China and the team finished seventh. Then COVID-19 hit and the changes to the NBA schedule left the Tokyo Olympic team with a total absence of the chemistry Colangelo had worked so hard to establish.
But his strong relationships, especially with Durant, allowed a strong team to still be assembled even with the considerable challenges. And now Colangelo is one victory from an ultimate four-Olympic sweep that seemed quite unlikely back in 2005 when he took the job.
"A big point for Jerry was his patience and his belief that we would win. It was not just to win the gold medal but to win the respect of our country and the world," Krzyzewski says. "And all three of those things were accomplished. And they would not have been accomplished without a visionary leader like Jerry."