After successful a gold medal on the 2024 Paris Olympics — even with some unwarranted inside controversy concerning Jayson Tatum — Steve Kerr is reportedly performed teaching Workforce USA males’s basketball, in line with longtime NBA reporter Marc Stein.
The information doesn’t come as a shock, because the legendary Golden State Warriors head coach has beforehand advised The Athletic he would probably step down because the People’ head man after the Paris Video games as a result of he at all times thought the job was like a “baton” to be handed alongside.
The place it will get fascinating is who will probably substitute Kerr, particularly because the USA program begins waiting for Los Angeles in 2028. Stein has mentioned Miami Warmth head coach Erik Spoelstra and Los Angeles Clippers head coach Tyronn Lue are the highest two alternative candidates, a choice that looks like a no brainer both means.
Nevertheless, let me make the choice for the People reasonably simple.
It ought to be Spoelstra. Operating away.
With no disrespect to Lue, who I believe is comfortably a top-five coach in NBA basketball proper now, Spoelstra is clearly the very best coach within the males’s recreation. In truth, it’s not even shut. Frankly, I used to be at all times somewhat stunned the grasp tactician from Miami wasn’t the USA coach for this previous Olympics cycle, as I really assume Spoelstra is loads higher than Kerr.
Spoelstra’s {qualifications} principally converse for themselves.
He’s led the Warmth to 2 NBA titles, with six total appearances within the NBA Finals since 2011. The Warmth have missed the playoffs solely 3 times in his complete tenure, which began within the 2008-2009 season. Anybody you discuss to concerning the recreation typically touts Spoelstra’s innate skill to maximise no matter expertise he has available. He’s, in impact, the purveyor of the notorious “Warmth Tradition” that has grow to be a meme in NBA circles exactly since you actually can by no means rely Miami out so long as Spoelstra is teaching. That’s as a result of he’s a superb basketball junkie by means of and thru.
Now think about the man identified for taking “gritty” and infrequently haphazardly pieced-together groups teaching a squad of all the very best American gamers on the planet. Hoo boy. This isn’t to say the People are going through any actual menace of dropping their gold-medal perch in Los Angeles, however extra that Spoelstra’s teaching would in all probability make them one way or the other much more of a digital shoo-in.
Make the precise determination, USA basketball. Let Kerr cross that baton to Spoelstra. He’s earned it.
