Spoelstra talks about new role with Team USA
Miami Heat coach Erik Spoelstra is excited to be part of Team USA ahead of the Tokyo Olympics. He also offered his thoughts on the Surfside building collapse.
Miami Heat coach Erik Spoelstra has faced off against San Antonio Spurs coach Gregg Popovich on the NBA’s biggest stage in the 2013 and 2014 Finals. This summer, Spoelstra will help Popovich and his Team USA staff prepare for the Tokyo Olympics.
Spoelstra accepted an invitation to help coach the Team USA select team, which is a group of players who will be at the national team’s training camp in Las Vegas to practice and scrimmage against the Olympic roster. The Associated Press was the first to report the news.
“I’m really excited to be a part of the program in any capacity,” Spoelstra said to a group of South Florida reporters Friday. “You guys know, I’ve admired Pop for a long
time. He’s the standard of excellence in our profession, but he’s also the example of how you can operate in this profession with grace and humility.”
Spoelstra’s specific role with the select team is still unclear, but he said: “More than anything, I’m just there to help.”
This marks Spoelstra’s first stint with Team USA, and he will not travel to Tokyo for the Olympics. Popovich is the head coach of Team USA’s Olympic roster, and his assistants are Steve Kerr
of the Golden State Warriors, former Atlanta Hawks coach Lloyd Pierce and Villanova’s Jay
Wright.
“Just being around the coach who’s arguably one of the best that has ever done it,” Spoelstra said. “And in this kind of setting, there’s just going to be some incredibly talented and bright minds. Not only Pop, but Steve, Lloyd and Jay. And the players. I’m looking forward to just being in the gym with all these great players.”
Popovich, 72, is entering his first Olympics as Team USA’s head coach after Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski led the national team to three consecutive Olympic gold medals in 2008, 2012 and 2016. Past Team USA head coaches include Larry Brown,
Rudy Tomjanovich, Lenny Wilkens and Chuck Daly.
It remains unclear how long Popovich wants to serve as Team USA’s head coach, and it’s too early to speculate about his successor for that position. But Spoelstra’s name is now on the list of NBA coaches who are currently part of the national team’s program.
When asked if he wants to pursue a bigger role with Team USA in coming years, Spoelstra said: “I’m not even thinking about it in those terms, at all. Really, it’s just an opportunity to be a part of the program this summer, with the Select team.”
If Spoelstra does get more involved with Team USA moving forward, whether it’s as a head coach or assistant coach, he could have an opportunity to coach in the Philippines. The Philippines is one of three countries hosting the 2023 FIBA World Cup, along with Indonesia and Japan.
Spoelstra, who is the NBA’s first Asian-American coach, is of Filipino descent on his mother’s side of the family.
“I’m not thinking about that,” Spoelstra said of the possibility of coaching games in the Philippines with Team USA in 2023. “This is really just an opportunity to be a part of the program this summer. I just want to help in any capacity that I can.”
Spoelstra, 50, just completed his 13th season as the Heat’s head coach. He’s the second-longest active tenured NBA head coach with one team, trailing only Popovich.
Team USA finalized its 12-man roster for the
Olympics on Wednesday, and Heat center Bam Adebayo is on it. The roster, which could change in the coming weeks, also includes: Washington’s Bradley Beal, Phoenix’s Devin Booker, Brooklyn’s Kevin Durant, Detroit’s Jerami Grant, Golden State’s Draymond Green, Milwaukee’s Jrue Holiday and Khris Middleton, Chicago’s Zach LaVine, Portland’s Damian Lillard, Cleveland’s Kevin Love and Boston’s Jayson Tatum.
“This will give us a chance to be in the same gym,” Spoelstra said of Adebayo committing to Team USA’s Olympic roster. “But I’m thrilled for Bam, for this experience. He has been in the program. I think he was better for it from the last experience, even though that was only a week. He’s a much different and much improved player from two summers ago.
“But the opportunity to be around that group of great players, an incredible environment, to have Hall of Fame, world-class coaching, and super-intense, high-level competition I think is the best thing for his player development. There couldn’t be any better road map for a summer, an offseason for
Bam, where he is in his career, than to do this at this stage. And then to go to Tokyo and have an opportunity to compete for a gold, that’s a life experience.”
The only confirmed members of this year’s Team USA select team, according to reports, are Minnesota’s Anthony Edwards and Cleveland’s Darius Garland. The full select team roster is expected to be finalized in the coming days.
Spoelstra said “stay tuned” when asked if a Heat player will be part of the select team roster, with Heat guards Tyler Herro and Kendrick Nunn and forward Duncan Robinson among the realistic possibilities for the group of NBA up-and-comers.
For now, Spoelstra said he’s “just catching up with all the games that [Team USA] played in 2019 [in the World Cup] and the competition that we’ll be facing in July in the exhibitions. I’m really excited about that experience of watching all these different teams.”
Team USA is scheduled to begin its men’s training camp in Las Vegas on July 6. Camp will include a five-game exhibition schedule that begins with a matchup against Nigeria on July 10 before the team leaves for Tokyo for the Olympics.
Spoelstra’s wife, Nikki, and their two sons, Santiago and Dante, will be joining him in Las Vegas for part of his Team USA experience.
“That’s the great thing about the U.S. program,” Spoelstra said. “[Team USA managing director] Jerry [Colangelo] and Coach K and Pop have all stressed that it’s a family affair, and it really is family-inclusive. So yes, my family will be coming out there at some point to Vegas and have a lot of pool time. I don’t know if I’ll be in the pool the whole time, but they’ll have a lot of pool time.”
SPOELSTRA ON SURFSIDE TRAGEDY
Spoelstra made sure Friday to offer his thoughts for those impacted by the collapse of the Champlain Towers South condo in Surfside.
“We’re thinking about all the families and everybody up there in Surfside,” he said. “Our thoughts and prayers are for all the families up there and all the first responders that are helping out.”
Herro, assistant coaches Chris Quinn and Eric Glass and other team representatives visited first responders near the site of the partially collapsed building in Surfside on Thursday afternoon to drop off cases of bottled water, snacks and meals.
“It shows you how much it hit everybody,” said Spoelstra, who was not in Miami on Thursday. “Tyler had been up since 5:30, had already had two workouts. And as the news story was circulating,
Steve [Stowe, vice president and executive director of the Miami Heat Charitable Fund] just organized everybody and said, ‘Hey, do you want to go up there?’ And it was without hesitation, they went right from the gym up there, just to do anything to help lend support. ... It’s just really horrible to see.”
The Heat, the Miami Heat Charitable Fund,
The Coral Gables Community Foundation, The Key Biscayne Community Foundation and The Miami Foundation began a hardship fund for those impacted by the Surfside building collapse. More than $270,000 has already been raised, according to the Heat.
Contributions to the fund can be made here.