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k erik spoelstra miami Heat has emerged as the choice to be the next coach of the US men’s basketball team for the 2027 World Cup Queue and the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics, two people with knowledge of the situation said Thursday.
Spoelstra and USA Basketball have not yet fully finalized any agreement, said the people, who spoke on condition of anonymity because no public announcement has been scheduled.
Spoelstra will replace him steve kerrWho coached the Americans in the last Olympic cycle and led the team to a gold medal Paris game. The U.S. men have won the last five Olympic gold medals, and Spoelstra was on the staff that won gold in Paris last summer. He told the Associated Press after the gold medal game in Paris that he “would be honored” if USA Basketball asked him to take over the program.
Spoelstra will also become the first Heat coach to have the distinction of becoming an Olympic coach.
The move comes shortly after USA Basketball finalized a deal to make Duke coach Cara Lawson coach the women’s national team for the Olympic cycle through the Los Angeles Games.
Spoelstra – whose father, John Spoelstra, was a nba Executive with Portland, Denver and New Jersey – Was an outstanding high school guard at Oregon, then played at the University of Portland, where he was the West Coast Conference freshman of the year. After college, he spent two years playing professionally in Germany before the Heat made an offer to hire the 24-year-old for a job in their video room – a deal that came about a month before Miami hired Pat Riley to take over in 1995.
Spoelstra is entering his 18th season as coach of the Heat, making him the longest current tenured coach in the league following the retirement of San Antonio’s Gregg Popovich. He has won two NBA titles as a head coach, another title as an assistant under Pat Riley in 2006 and was part of USA Basketball’s coaching staff under Kerr at both the World Cup in 2023 and the Paris Olympics in 2024.
Spoelstra, 54, is 787-572 in his 17 seasons with Miami.
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AP NBA: https://apnews.com/hub/NBA