{"id":346826,"date":"2025-10-17T06:59:15","date_gmt":"2025-10-17T06:59:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/346826\/"},"modified":"2025-10-17T06:59:15","modified_gmt":"2025-10-17T06:59:15","slug":"heat-players-surprise-erik-spoelstra-at-team-usa-press-conference-hot-hot-hoops","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/346826\/","title":{"rendered":"Heat players surprise Erik Spoelstra at Team USA press conference &#8211; Hot Hot Hoops"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"576\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Screenshot-10-16-9.08PM-1024x576.jpg\" alt=\"Erik Spoelstra\" class=\"wp-image-11949\" style=\"width:1024px;height:auto\"  \/>Miami Heat head coach Erik Spoelstra was named the Team USA men\u2019s basketball coach recently. (Mandatory Credit: Ethan Miller\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n<p>Last week, Miami Heat head coach Erik Spoelstra <a href=\"https:\/\/hothothoops.com\/2025\/10\/09\/erik-spoelstra-named-head-coach-usa-mens-national-team\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">earned<\/a> the honor of a lifetime, as he was named the head coach of the USA men\u2019s basketball team through the 2028 Olympics. Team USA officially made the announcement this week, with the press conference being held Thursday in front of reporters in Miami, Fla.<\/p>\n<p>That invited some unexpected fun.<\/p>\n<p>During Spoelstra\u2019s press conference, multiple Heat players crashed Spoelstra\u2019s press conference unexpectedly, waving mini USA flags while giving him applause. It was a moment of appreciation and gratitude for the longtime Heat head coach, who will be taking over for Golden State Warriors head coach Steve Kerr.<\/p>\n<p>Spoelstra subsequently made a joke about Pelle Larsson (Sweden), Nikola Jovic (Serbia) and Simone Fontecchio (Italy) coming to the front to celebrate. They didn\u2019t appear in the shot, although Precious Achiuwa (Nigeria) took one for the team.<\/p>\n<p>It was a great moment, all around.<\/p>\n<p>Spoelstra was on the sideline when Team USA clinched gold in 2024. Now, he will be tasked with guiding a team to repeat, which has become more difficult because of the influx of quality international competition. If anyone loves taking challenges head-on, it\u2019s him. We\u2019ve seen what he can do with less-than-talented rosters, but winning Gold in front of your home country, despite being the presumptive favorite, will still be a sizable one.<\/p>\n<p>***<\/p>\n<p>To check out our other content, click\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/hothothoops.com\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Follow Hot Hot Hoops on Twitter\/X\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/hothothoops?s=20\" rel=\"nofollow\">here<\/a>!<\/p>\n<p>Follow Hot Hot Hoops on Instagram\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/hothothoops?fbclid=PAAaZK-uxa3cMPUQcM2z6aGmK3faJ-G1R7YKtEOcPJNPO4VwfOvw1epBIoCyk_aem_Ad_aZ7zQwWkfVN5rHfd0UkIWrYEnU4j4Ulz0SRK__Qt1738L-NeQ3cZC5voFks7V6K8\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>!<\/p>\n<p>Subscribe to our YouTube channel\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/hothothoops\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">here<\/a>!<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t<script async src=\"\/\/www.instagram.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Miami Heat head coach Erik Spoelstra was named the Team USA men\u2019s basketball coach recently. (Mandatory Credit: Ethan&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":346827,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3778],"tags":[8457,53374,7,1200,53396,42043,31128,31129,55189,55190,55191,144,3948,295,189,3953,3881,6,4109],"class_list":{"0":"post-346826","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-miami-heat","8":"tag-2025-26-miami-heat-season","9":"tag-2025-26-nba-gm-survey","10":"tag-basketball","11":"tag-erik-spoelstra","12":"tag-erik-spoelstra-coach","13":"tag-erik-spoelstra-head-coach","14":"tag-erik-spoelstra-heat","15":"tag-erik-spoelstra-miami-heat","16":"tag-erik-spoelstra-team-usa","17":"tag-erik-spoelstra-usa","18":"tag-erik-spoelstra-usa-head-coach","19":"tag-heat","20":"tag-heat-news","21":"tag-miami","22":"tag-miami-heat","23":"tag-miami-heat-news","24":"tag-miamiheat","25":"tag-nba","26":"tag-team-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115388217361788871","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346826","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=346826"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346826\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/346827"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=346826"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=346826"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=346826"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}