Steve Kerr praises Erik Spoelstra as ‘great choice’ for US Olympic basketball coach

MIAMI (AP) – Golden State’s Steve Kerr doesn’t see much of a need to pass the Olympic coaching torch to Miami’s Erik Spoelstra.

In Kerr’s mind, Spoelstra was ready for the looming challenge long ago.

Kerr – the former U.S. Olympic men’s basketball coach – was facing off with Spoelstra – the current U.S. Olympic men’s basketball coach – on Wednesday night for the first time since the Heat sideline boss was officially hired by USA Basketball to take over the national team. Kerr said he has zero doubt that Spoelstra is ready for the challenge and all that comes with it.

“He was a great choice,” Kerr said before the Golden State-Miami game. “He’s one of the great coaches of all time. Great awareness of what FIBA is about, the difference between coaching a team for seven weeks and coaching one for nine months, all of that stuff. He’s just got his finger on the pulse of it all. He’s going to be great.”

Spoelstra will lead the U.S. men at the 2027 World Cup in Doha, Qatar and the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics. Kerr led the Americans at the 2023 World Cup, when they finished fourth in Manila, then again on the way to Olympic gold at the Paris Games in 2024. Spoelstra was on Kerr’s staff for both events.

Later this weekend in South Florida, the U.S. officially starts its quest to reach the 2027 World Cup. A 12-player team assembled for the first two games on the 12-game qualifying schedule will gather for practices at the University of Miami before flying to Nicaragua to open play on Nov. 28. The qualifying games run through March 2027.

Spoelstra hasn’t reached out to Kerr yet to talk specifics about how he pivoted from NBA thinking to international basketball thinking. He will, at some point.

“I’ve said it before, but I’m just so incredibly grateful for having that opportunity to be on his staff for the last two summers,” Spoelstra said. “The entire staff, we had such an amazing time. It was a life experience. It was Basketball 101. We all grew from it, just from a basketball coaching development experience. It’s the same four lines and two baskets and a basketball, but it’s a different sport, FIBA. And we were humbled in that first year and the second year, I think, the experiences that we had the summer before helped us for that Olympic experience.”

The U.S. men have won the last five Olympic gold medals. Spoelstra will be tasked with extending that streak, and saw in Paris how difficult the job can be – with the Americans needing to rally from a double-digit deficit late to beat Serbia in the semifinals, then hold off France for the gold medal behind a dazzling show from Stephen Curry.

And when “The Star-Spangled Banner” played for the Americans that night in Paris to commemorate their Olympic gold, Kerr turned to Spoelstra and said, “good luck.” The announcement that Spoelstra was taking over the team was more than a year away, but Kerr already seemed to know who the next coach needed to be.

“I was so impressed with Steve just in terms of the way he was able to manage everything,” Spoelstra said. “We all know that there is great pressure. I think he, as part of his genius, he managed that beautifully. Just getting the team, one, to handle all the expectations, and then getting the team to hit the stride at just the right time and be able to handle adversity like we did against Serbia. I think it was just great leadership on his part. That experience will be something I’ll never forget.”