BEIJING — As he trudged back to the locker room in the bowels of Cadillac Arena, needing to deliver one last post-game address to his humbled United States men’s basketball team, Coach Gregg Popovich looked up and felt a need to stop.

The United States had just been forced to settle for seventh place in the FIBA World Cup, by beating Poland, 87-74. Popovich spotted A.J. Slaughter, an American-born guard on the Polish team, and couldn’t let him get away without dispensing some advice first.

“Tell them to pay you more,” Popovich told Slaughter.

It turns out Popovich and Slaughter were not exactly strangers in the Beijing night. Long before they were opponents here Saturday, Slaughter had auditioned for Popovich and the San Antonio Spurs leading up to the 2010 N.B.A. draft. The former Western Kentucky star, who gained Polish citizenship in 2015, also spent the last two seasons playing for a team in France owned by the longtime Spurs guard Tony Parker.

“We got some connections,” Slaughter said with a laugh.

Nothing, though, could quite prepare the Kentucky-born Slaughter for this occasion.