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Team USA’s basketball camp, led by new head coach Gregg Popovich, will begin in Las Vegas this week, and it will include the Spurs’ newest acquisition: DeMar DeRozan. Although not the same as club basketball, it will be his first chance to be coached by Pop and give him a little taste of what’s to come ahead of training camp (although this will likely be much lighter).

DeRozan’s prior experience at the national level include being part of the US team that won the 2014 FIBA World Cup. He also won a gold medal with Team USA at the 2016 Olympics....

Once again, welcome to San Antonio, DeMar! Enjoy your first experience with Pop!

On Thursday in Las Vegas, Popovich’s tenure as the next coach of the United States men’s basketball team — and the successor to the wildly successful Mike Krzyzewski — begins in earnest. Thirty-five American stars have been invited to two days of light practices and bonding meetings to launch the transition from Duke University’s Coach K to San Antonio’s Pop.

“This summer is more about camaraderie than coaching,” Popovich said.

Asked how he had been coping with events both at and away from work, Popovich offered a brief acknowledgment that “it’s been difficult.”

Popovich’s closest friends, then, are understandably hoping that stepping into the U.S. national team role — his dream job — can provide a sanctuary from everything else.

As fiercely patriotic as anyone in basketball, Popovich inevitably prefers to focus on the new gig....

“It’s an absolutely humbling endeavor and an honor to be asked to do this,” Popovich said. “It’s bigger than any one game or any one season.

“I feel that already. I think about it every day to some extent.”

JERRY COLANGELO: Sure. First of all, welcome, everyone. You know, it's another exciting time for USA Basketball as we get ready to prepare for this next series of competitions. We don't have competition this summer, obviously, with the new FIBA format, but we will be meeting this summer and taking our first step in continuing with our culture under the new leadership of Coach Popovich, getting ready for the World Cup in '19 and the Olympics in 2020.

Just a couple of things. The selection committee was comprised of Sean Ford, who is a longtime USA Basketball executive and a very key part of our whole program, myself, and Coach Popovich, and you can see that we have an extensive list of qualified, experienced, international experienced players with some new additions, and we're excited, obviously, about that.

With the new World Cup qualifying system, we are well on our way toward qualifying, and a very special shout-out to Jeff Van Gundy, who has done an incredible job of coaching the World Cup qualifying team, and he's doing it with G League players who have done a great job for him.

So we're excited to get the ball rolling, and bear in mind that this is a fluid list, as it has been in the past, but very pleased, very excited to have Coach Popovich taking the lead as we go forward here, and I'll now turn it over to Pop.

GREGG POPOVICH: Thank you, Jerry. Hello, everybody. As anyone might imagine, this is quite an honor and humbling experience to be involved with USA Basketball and this group of players. I'm very much looking forward to getting together with everybody this summer....

The summer is going to be an interesting social experience more than O's and X's and that type of thing. But very necessary and very important, getting the group together to continue the camaraderie and the friendships that Jerry and Coach K and Sean Ford put together for the past years, so that will be hopefully a continuation of that.

GREGG POPOVICH: It's quite the idea or thought when you think about being on the court with all these players, that's quite a brotherhood. There's a lot of talent there. There's a lot of friendships. They enjoy getting together. The culture has been established already, you know, with USA Basketball and everything that they've done. To see that in action and to see all these guys come together in Vegas this summer is going to be pretty exciting.

“Today was great,” he said. “Me having another opportunity to be in this position again, to represent my country again, it’s an honor.”

"Free throws are important, and any time you can put pressure on somebody in a practice situation, I think it helps," Pop said. "You go up there, you don't want to miss because it causes pain for everybody else. There's a little bit of pressure there and that's what you saw. It's good stuff, it's a nice little technique."