Earlier this year, President Barack Obama met with Team USA basketball and had a hilarious interaction with the players and coaching staff.
Obama had a familiarity with several players and coaches including Stephen Curry, LeBron James, Erik Spoelstra, and Steve Kerr. That much was quite obvious when he greeted each of them for a handshake.
But the former POTUS was not as familiar with Team USA assistant coach Mark Few, who is also the head coach of Gonzaga Men’s Basketball. During a recent interview with Indiana Pacers guard Tyrese Haliburton, who was on Team USA this summer, Obama said he had never met Few.
Tyrese had to ask Obama about doing the Key & Peele handshake sketch IRL w/ Team USA basketball 🤣💀 pic.twitter.com/bu7mapUYwP
— TheYoungManAndTheThree (@OldManAndThree) October 23, 2024
So when it came time to shake his hand, he wasn’t sure what greeting to go with. In the conversation, he admitted that it ended up looking a lot like an iconic sketch from Key & Peele at a meet and greet:
“I gotta say, that was funny. But here’s what happened. Here’s what happened. So I’m going down the row, right? A lot of those guys, I knew. And then right before I got to Coach Few, it’s Steph, it’s LeBron. I’ve been knowing those guys forever. I had dinner with them, their families. So then Coach Few, I’d never met. And he put out his hand and I’m like, alright. Yeah. I don’t know. Is he going to be comfortable if I pull him into a bro hug? I don’t know. So I just shook his hand. Kerr was right afterward. And Steve I knew. But the way it played out, I will say, it looked just like that Key & Peele skit.”
Obama revealed that he did not know that people would make the comparison because it was not a “conscious” decision.
You can watch the version from his presidency and the version from the Olympics:
Obama did the Key and Peele sketch in real life pic.twitter.com/oXxlJjuCRI
— CONSEQUENCE (@consequence) July 11, 2024
When he watched it side-by-side, he felt like people “caught” him.
The former president added that the two comedians did plenty of funny sketches surrounding his presidency and believes that Jordan Peele does a fantastic impression of him.
Meanwhile, this was a great job by Haliburton to ask the question.
