Team USA minicamp has been under way in Las Vegas over the past week, with head coach Gregg Popovich taking his roster of NBA stars through their paces. The 69-year-old has been in the role since longtime coach Mike Krzyzewski stepped down in 2016, and is building towards the 2020 Olympic games with his all-star cast of players. 'Pop' has always been a hands on coach, and he's been getting stuck in with drills and aggressively coaching up guys as usual in this camp. Aside from the slightly awkward absence of his former Spurs star Kawhi Leonard, the camp seems to have gone smoothly with no major talking points arising so far. Popovich has also been able to get hands on with his new all star in San Antonio, DeMar DeRozan, ahead of the new season. Whilst the longtime Spurs coach is well known for getting physical in practice, one may not have expected him to get quite so involved as he was on Friday. Though it was clearly meant in good spirits, Popovich provided some pretty physical defense on his players in a drill with them driving to the basket, including this rather comical shove on the 2018 NBA  Most Improved Player Victor Oladipo. 

That was the end of his humour in camp either, as James Harden will gladly tell you. 

Earlier in the week Pop promised his players he'd buy them a car if they won an impromptu shooting contest which sparked a pretty competitive reaction. Harden was one of several winners and Popovich did actually follow through with his promise. 

The only thing was it wasn't exactly the kind of car that the reigning MVP was expecting. This is a classic. 

“I won it yesterday (Thursday) during a shooting game. Pop said he was going to get us all cars, so I thought he was talking about an actual car. He got us a toy car,” Harden said via KSAT-TV. 

“We ran some drills, and I told the winners — there were about seven winners — I told them the winners they were going to get a car, I’d buy them a car. I had to follow through, so I bought them cars. … I brought the bag and let them in. They laughed, they all laughed, they thought it was funny. Just screwing with them.” Popovich added. 

The atmosphere in camp seems to be one of high spirits and for that reason maybe the absence of the ever confusing Leonard isn't such a bad thing.