Jerry Colangelo Recounts USA Basketball's 'Redeem Team'

PHOENIX, AZ — There are few if any figures as influential to the history of sports in Phoenix than Jerry Colangelo.

Colangelo, who once owned the Phoenix Suns, in addition to the Arizona Diamondbacks and Phoenix Mercury, discussed his role as the director of USA Basketball on a recent episode of Diversion Podcast's "The Dream Team Tapes: Kobe, LeBron & The Redeem Team."

Among the topics that Colangelo covered on the podcast were the stipulations he put in place with then-NBA Commissioner David Stern before he was willing to accept his role with the Olympic team.

Those stipulation stemmed from the U.S. men's basketball Olympic team's disastrous performance in the 2004 Summer Games in Athens, Greece — when a squad full of NBA stars finished with a bronze medal in the competition.

That outing remains the lone Olympics since the games allowed NBA players to compete in 1992 where the U.S. did not win a gold medal.

That's why Colangelo, whose nickname around the game is "The Godfather," asked for a bountiful budget and carte blanche to bring in any personnel that he desired for the roster.

“I basically said, 'Yeah, I’ll do it but I have a couple conditions...One, full autonomy in terms of the selection process...and two, I don’t want to hear about a budget',” Colangelo said.

The net result of Colangelo's efforts was the addition of legendary Duke University coach Mike Krzyzewski to serve in the same role on the Olympic team.

Krzyzewski's involvement resulted in the addition of NBA superstars Kobe Bryant and LeBron James to the team's roster, which rebuilt the U.S. Olympic team into a juggernaut.

Colangelo described how he took the U.S. Olympic team's turmoil in the 2004 games personally and how he felt an obligation to do whatever he needed to do to get the squad back to the top of the medal podium.

"I was unhappy with the way people were looking at us as Americans, as athletes and in particular our basketball players in Greece," Colangelo said. "It was a little shameful in my opinion.”

Needless to say, Colangelo and company successfully rebuilt the U.S. Olympic team's reputation among NBA players.

That success started with the effort that Colangelo and Krzyzewski put in to build the roster for the 2008 games, piecing together a roster that would go down in the history books under the moniker "The 2008 Redeem Team."

The team has won all 24 of its games in the last three Summer Olympics, sweeping the 12-team competition each time.

Listen to more of what Colangelo had to say via Diversion Podcasts