In the mid-2010s, Jason Kidd and Kweku Smith, PhD , overlapped at the Milwaukee Bucks , the former as head coach and the latter as the NBA team’s psychologist. According to Smith, Kidd, a two-time Olympian who helped the U.S.
men’s basketball team win gold in 2000 and 2008, would challenge the players and other coaches by asking how they could get better every day. Kidd eventually turned the question on Smith: What was his dream? “I said, ‘Well, maybe one day me and you go back to the Olympics —you as a coach and me as the team psychologist—and we win another gold medal,’” Smith tells Fortune , noting he’d been half-joking. “For it to really come back full circle but in a different manner was a manifestation, a dream come true.
” Kidd, now head coach of the Dallas Mavericks , isn’t headed to the Summer 2024 Games in Paris; the Golden State Warriors ’ Steve Kerr will coach Team USA. Smith, however, will make his Olympic debut in the City of Light less than a year after joining the U.S.
Olympic and Paralympic Committee as a psychological services provider. “My No. 1 goal is to do anything I can do to help the American athletes—and even athletes from other regions who may not have some people in our [field]—to give them the best service possible,” Smith tells Fortune .
“They set us up in a position where we can do that, where we may work long hours some days, but we’ll be able to recoup because there’s so many of us to be able to do a prope.