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And-Ones: Team USA, Practice Facility, Trade Deadline, Panic Meter

December 7th 2024 at 4:00pm CST by Luke Adams

With Steve Kerr not expected to return as Team USA’s head coach for the upcoming international basketball cycle that includes the 2027 FIBA World Cup and the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles, USA Basketball and managing director Grant Hill will be tasked with selecting Kerr’s successor.

According to Joe Vardon of The Athletic, Hill has yet to begin the process of selecting the next U.S. head coach and is unlikely to name Kerr’s replacement anytime soon, since it would create several years of “unnecessary pressure” on that individual leading up to the 2027 and 2028 events, a source tells Vardon.

Still, it looks like there are two obvious frontrunners for the job, Vardon says, identifying Heat head coach Erik Spoelstra and Clippers head coach Tyronn Lue as the most logical candidates. Outside of their NBA résumés, which include championships, Spoelstra and Lue were the top assistants on Kerr’s staff in Paris during the 2024 Olympics. Both men indicated they’d be honored to be selected for the role, Vardon writes.

“I’d be willing to do anything for USA Basketball,” Spoelstra said. “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.”

“Yeah, it sounds amazing,” Lue added. “To be the Olympic head coach in this building (the Clippers’ Intuit Dome), 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.”

Here are a few more odds and ends from around the basketball world:

  • There has been a clear trend over the last decade of NBA teams seeking a competitive edge by building new, state-of-the-art practice facilities, with 20 of the league’s 30 clubs opening new facilities since 2014, according to Josh Robbins of The Athletic. Robbins explores the “unrelenting contest of innovation and one-upmanship” involved in the “arms race,” with teams across the league looking to create advantages in the way they look after players and recruit free agents. “I would say if the standard of the facility is high-end, the players better be too,” Magic big man Moritz Wagner said when asked if a new practice facility can help a team win games. “I do think that the players feel that. I mean, there’s no excuse, right? There’s no excuse not to work every day when you have a place like that.”
  • How should the NBA’s 30 teams approach this season’s trade deadline? Eric Pincus of Bleacher Report digs into that topic, making a case for whether each club should buy, sell, or hold — or, in some cases, a combination of more than one. For instance, Pincus advocates for the Hawks, Spurs, Raptors, and Hornets to pursue “opportunistic improvement” rather than purely selling.
  • Law Murray of The Athletic rates a handful of teams on the “panic meter,” explaining that he thinks the Pacers and Pelicans have more reason to panic than the Lakers because L.A. has finished in play-in territory in each of the past two seasons and shouldn’t realistically expect to be much better than they’ve been so far this fall.
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