EXACTLY ONE HOUR before the tipoff of the gold medal game last summer in Paris, when Olympic rules dictated players could come onto the court for warmups, an unlikely duo was the first to hit the floor.
Erik Spoelstra and LeBron James, all business, worked through their pregame routine, Team USA’s assistant coach putting the player through the paces. It was a common sight all summer, Spoelstra and James working together individually, their past history of joy, pain and drama with the Miami Heat pushed out of consciousness.
“Moments like those are a testament to what USA Basketball is all about,” Spoelstra told ESPN. “No matter what friction or misunderstandings you may have had in the NBA, it all gets moved aside because you have the same goal.”
Spoelstra is known for his obsessive nature, but especially so when it comes to what he refers to as the “purity” of competition. Whether he’s talking about a bench player filling his role, a superstar delivering in the clutch or his own responsibilities, it’s one of the guiding principles in Spoelstra’s 17 years as head coach of the Heat.
And it’s why Spoelstra has been destined to lead Team USA, which was formalized Tuesday when he was announced as the next head coach of the national team. Spoelstra will guide the Americans through the 2027 FIBA World Cup in Qatar and the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles.
“Everyone in this business wants to be a part of Team USA, the legacy and history of the program is the ultimate in the sport and I’m both humbled and grateful,” Spoelstra said. “Competing on the world stage is so stimulating.”
SPOELSTRA HAS QUICKLY moved up the USA Basketball ranks, coaching the Select Team in 2021 during a COVID-limited training camp in Las Vegas that helped prepare the national team for the Tokyo games that summer.
Then he was former coach Steve Kerr’s assistant for the 2023 World Cup and 2024 Olympics, impressing USA Basketball executive director Grant Hill so much with his investment in the role that he instantly became the leading candidate to be Kerr’s successor.
“Just watching him the last two summers and getting to know him up close rather than just from afar, where I’ve admired him for so long, I got a firsthand glimpse at what a great coach he is,” Kerr said last week. “I think the assistant coaching [on Team USA] is almost a prerequisite for coaching USA … he’s a perfect choice. He’s going to be great.”
Hill, who took over USA Basketball in 2021, didn’t run an expansive search, sources said. After seeing Spoelstra’s performance, Hill and other members of the USA Basketball leadership team, including CEO Jim Tooley and Chairman Gen. (Ret.) Martin Dempsey, were convinced.
“I have known Erik Spoelstra for the better part of two decades and have gotten to know him better throughout our time with USA Basketball,” Hill said. “Spo is not only an outstanding coach, but a great colleague, friend and father, all of which make him the perfect choice to continue the USA Basketball Men’s National Team coaching legacy through 2028.”
Spoelstra has a significant task ahead of him — both in selecting and preparing the team to defend its home turf and its gold medal. The superstars who powered the 2024 team in Paris — Olympics MVP LeBron James, gold-medal-game hero Stephen Curry and four-time gold medalist Kevin Durant — are obviously no guarantee to participate in LA28.
In addition to turning over the roster, getting players to sign up for the World Cup in ’27 might be a challenge.
The World Cup is the primary way teams qualify for the Olympics and it’s a grueling three-year process. It includes six qualification game windows over a 15-month span — most of them played during the NBA season when top players aren’t available and many game are in far-flung places such as Santa Cruz do Sul, Brazil — that must be navigated to qualify for the World Cup. Then only the top two finishers from North and South America at the World Cup itself get into the Olympics. The U.S. has squeaked into Olympic berths over the past two cycles, not medaling in the previous two World Cups.
But because the U.S. is the host nation, the Americans are given an automatic berth into 2028. With the summer heat in Doha (the World Cup starts Aug. 27, 2027), getting participation from top stars — with an Olympic berth already guaranteed — could be a harder sell.
Other countries, such as the reigning World Cup and European champion Germany, have required players to make multiyear commitments to ensure they make the Olympic roster. Team USA created this standard in 2005 after losing the 2004 Olympic gold but has moved away from it over the past 15 years.
Hill and Spoelstra do not currently have plans for such a requirement, but the coach made it clear there will be a standard.
“This is a time where players are going to understand the importance of putting your hand up and saying you want the opportunity to be a part of the USA program,” Spoelstra said. “It’s more than just about having to qualify [for the Olympics], it’s about the shared life experience that being on Team USA means.”
Managing high-profile stars, their egos and their needs is one of the demanding parts of the job. In 2024, for example, Kerr faced scrutiny when he elected to take Celtics star Jayson Tatum out of the rotation for two games.
Team USA won them both, but Kerr was still heartily booed when he brought the Warriors to Boston last season, and probably will continue to be into the future.
MIKE KRZYZEWSKI, GREGG POPOVICH and Kerr, the past three men in the job who have led Team USA to five straight Olympic golds, have all discussed the demanding nature of the decisions the job requires and the stress it induces.
“There’s only one outcome that you are allowed to have — it’s did you win?” Krzyzewski said last year looking back at his time as USA head coach from 2006-2018. “To win the Olympic gold, you have to win what is essentially three straight Game 7s against NBA talent playing the biggest games of their lives, and you’re expected to win them all.”
And never more so than now.
The U.S. is expected to win in 2028, but it no longer enjoys the large margin for error against international competition that it used to. The team has had to pull off double-digit comebacks in the medal round of the past two Olympics, the Game 7-style situations Krzyzewski referred to, to keep the gold streak alive.
Spoelstra, who won two NBA championships as head coach and has led teams to the Finals six times, is well aware of the strings that come along with the promotion.
“When you’re an assistant coach, it’s easier for the players to see you as more of a friend, so the relationship changes [when you’re head coach],” Spoelstra said. “But that is what you understand when you are a part of Team USA, you’re the ‘Man in the Arena,’ and it really makes you feel alive.”
