Spoelstra? Lue? Why USA Basketball has options — and time — when choosing next coach
If Tyronn Lue is chosen as coach for USA Basketball’s next men’s national team, he may get to do something no coach has ever done:
Host an Olympic basketball tournament at his office.
Lue’s day job, you may know, is to coach the LA Clippers, where he is under contract through the 2028-29 season for about $70 million and has yet to have a losing season. The Clippers opened the $2 billion Intuit Dome this year, a stunning, state-of-the-art, crown jewel of a basketball arena in Inglewood, Calif., Steve Ballmer’s version of AT&T Stadium (aka Jerry World) outside of Dallas.
Intuit just happens to be the chosen arena for Olympic basketball when Los Angeles hosts the Summer Games in four years.
“Yeah, it sounds amazing,” Lue said. “To be the Olympic head coach in this building, of course, everybody would look at that as a cool opportunity, but there’s a lot that goes into it. To be chosen to do that is an honor and a blessing, but it’s not something I’m hanging my hat on because it’s two years away and Spo was involved in USA Basketball before I even got here.”
Spo, of course, is Miami Heat coach Erik Spoelstra, who could easily be named as successor to Steve Kerr on the American bench instead of Lue. Spoelstra and Lue were Kerr’s top two assistants for the Olympics last year and the FIBA World Cup in 2023, and the program values continuity on its coaching staff.
Team USA won its fifth consecutive gold medal last summer in Paris. Thirteen months ago, Kerr told The Athletic he would step down as the American coach after the Olympics, win or lose. He said, “It’s a two-year … cycle. (Gregg Popovich) coached a World Cup and the Olympics, now it’s my turn to pass the baton. I think that’s kind of how it should be. Frankly, it’s a huge commitment too.” Kerr, who also coaches the Golden State Warriors, has since re-affirmed privately that he will not return as USA coach.
The history lesson is important because it shows a pattern of how USA Basketball picks its coaches but also explains why the program isn’t preparing an announcement in the coming days. Kerr assisted Popovich on the USA staff at the 2019 World Cup in China and then for the Tokyo Olympics in 2021. Just a few months after the triumph in Tokyo — in December 2021, almost exactly three years ago — the Americans promoted Kerr and named his staff because they were on an accelerated timeline. The Tokyo Games were delayed a year by the COVID-19 pandemic, which meant there were only three years until the next Olympics and just two before the World Cup.
The Americans are not under the same pressure now, as the next World Cup is not until 2027 in Qatar. Managing director Grant Hill, who is primarily responsible for picking the coach (subject to approval by the USA Basketball board of directors), is basking in the glow of Paris gold and has not yet begun the process of selecting Kerr’s successor.
Grant Hill watches a scrimmage during USA Basketball men’s training camp in Las Vegas in July. (Ethan Miller / Getty Images)
But when Hill does engage, he’ll have a harder choice to make this time. Whereas Kerr was the most decorated NBA coach on Popovich’s staff, Spoelstra and Lue are both NBA champions, with a pile of NBA Finals berths (six for Spoelstra, three for Lue) and are regarded as two of the best in the profession. Mark Few, Gonzaga University’s coach, was also on Kerr’s bench with Spoelstra and Lue, but the program has steered toward NBA coaches since Mike Krzyzewski stepped down after the 2016 Olympics for Popovich, who was his assistant.
“I’d be willing to do anything for USA Basketball,” said Spoelstra, 54, who is in his 17th NBA season coaching the Heat. “That’s how it should be for anybody, for players and for staff members, if you’re asked. It’s such an honor and such a life experience, so you just do it. You don’t want to miss out on those experiences. And I would do any role.”
Hill declined to be interviewed for this story. One USA Basketball source said naming a coach now, this far out from the 2028 Summer Games, would mean four years of unnecessary pressure on Kerr’s successor.
As Lue mentioned, Spoelstra was in the USA program before Lue joined. Spoelstra coached the younger Select Team at training camp for the Olympics in 2021 (about five days of in-person work), whereas Lue was added to Kerr’s staff before the 2023 World Cup when Monty Williams stepped down due to family commitments.
If all else is equal, program seniority may be the easiest, cleanest separator. But there will be other factors to consider. While Spoelstra and Lue worked brilliantly as Kerr’s assistants and enjoyed coaching together personally, their styles as head coaches are quite different.
Spoelstra is the gatekeeper of Heat Culture, which carries with it a certain intensity that is not for everyone. Lue’s programs in Cleveland and Los Angeles are generally more relaxed, and Lue, 47, is close to players throughout the league. In particular, he has a relationship with the Boston Celtics’ Jayson Tatum, whom the Americans will need at the next Olympics after his occasional benching by Kerr in Paris.
To be fair to Spoelstra, though, Bam Adebayo is a likely fit for 2028 if he wants to play in another Olympics and has only played for Spoelstra in the NBA. Devin Booker, another shoo-in for 2028 as a two-time gold medalist (like Tatum and Adebayo), wanted to play for Spoelstra in Miami coming out of college.
There is danger in making a coaching choice based on players’ preference, anyway, given that whoever is named USA’s next coach will get the job at least two years before an Olympic roster is announced. That’s an eternity for targeted players to get hurt and for others to hurtle up the list. Also, the roster that represents the U.S. in Qatar in 2027 will probably be quite different from the roster for the Olympics. The World Cup team will comprise younger, rising stars.
As they wait for Hill’s decision, the two top candidates marvel at their experience as assistants.
“The last two years were incredible,” Spoelstra said. “The World Cup was amazing and really humbling (the U.S. finished fourth in that tournament). It was like, wow, this is really hard. At this stage in our careers, the way I talk about it, the experience was invigorating to experience something different. FIBA is different. It makes you feel alive. It’s incredibly difficult to do what we do. We have to make a bunch of decisions, and we can make wrong decisions, but we know the NBA world. This is different.”
The experience was so fulfilling for Lue that he hesitates when asked if he would do it again as an assistant. Not because of the role, but because Lue would want his colleagues to get the chance to enjoy a World Cup and Olympics as he did.
“Just being affiliated with USA Basketball was huge for me,” Lue said. “So when you have other young coaches who have an opportunity to have the same experience, you don’t want to take that away from them either. So it’s kind of a fine line because you do have the coaching staff that was there the last two years. You develop some continuity, you can talk to each other, and trust each other, which is very important too.”
Lue also said, “Whichever way it goes, the program is in good hands.”
Required reading
(Illustration: Meech Robinson / The Athletic; top photos: Juan Ocampo, Garrett Ellwood / NBAE via Getty Images; Erick W. Rasco / Sports Illustrated via Getty Images)