Heat’s Tyler Herro named to team that will help U.S. Olympians prepare for Tokyo
Miami Heat coach Erik Spoelstra and guard Tyler Herro likely won’t be heading to Tokyo to take part in the Olympics, but they will be part of Team USA’s program this summer.
Spoelstra recently was named head coach of the Team USA select team, which is a group consisting mostly of up-and-coming players who will be at the national team’s training camp in Las Vegas to practice and scrimmage against the Olympic roster in July.
And it was announced Thursday that Herro will be part of that select team that will help the Olympic roster, which features Heat center Bam Adebayo, prepare for Tokyo.
“[Herro] will get the chance to go against the best in the USA,” Adebayo said during a Thursday afternoon appearance at Jr. Heat Summer Camp at FTX Arena. “So I feel like that’s one of the biggest things that he can get. And obviously, getting to watch people’s work ethic and how they go about their professional business.”
Spoelstra hinted at this news when he said “stay tuned” on Friday to South Florida reporters when asked if a Heat player would be on the select team.
So Spoelstra will have one of his players on his select team roster this summer.
Along with Herro, the select team’s roster includes Saddiq Bey, Miles Bridges, Anthony Edwards, Darius Garland, Tyrese Haliburton, John Jenkins, Keldon Johnson, Josh Magette, Dakota Mathias, Immanuel Quickly, Naz Reid, Cam Reynolds, Isaiah Stewart, Obi Toppin, P.J. Washington and Patrick Williams.
The 21-year-old Herro, who is preparing for his third NBA season, averaged 15.1 points while shooting 43.9 percent from the field and 36 percent on threes, five rebounds and 3.4 assists in 54 regular-season games (15 starts) this past season.
In the playoffs, Herro averaged 9.3 points on 31.6 percent shooting from the field and 31.6 percent shooting on threes, 3.3 rebounds and 1.8 assists.
Expectations were high for Herro after his impressive playoff run in the Walt Disney World bubble as a rookie, when he averaged 16 points on 43.3 percent shooting from the field and 37.5 percent shooting on threes, 5.1 rebounds and 3.7 assists during the Heat’s postseason run that ended in the NBA Finals in 2019-20.
Herro put together a historic postseason in the bubble, joining Magic Johnson as the only players in NBA history to score 37 or more points in a playoff game at age 20 or younger and he also became just the sixth rookie in NBA history to score more than 300 points in the playoffs.
But it was an up-and-down sophomore NBA season for Herro, who moved to a bench role after starting in his first 14 appearances. He was then forced to miss seven games in January with neck spasms, sat out a Feb. 11 win against the Houston Rockets because of a false positive COVID-19 test, was unavailable for three games in late February with a right hip contusion, and missed seven games in the final weeks of the regular season because of right foot soreness.
Herro, who is due $4 million next season in the third year of his rookie-scale contract, will now have an opportunity to go up against some of the NBA’s best as part of the select team.
Team USA’s 12-man roster for the Olympics includes Adebayo, along with Washington’s Bradley Beal, Phoenix’s Devin Booker, Brooklyn’s Kevin Durant, Detroit’s Jerami Grant, Golden State’s Draymond Green, Milwaukee’s Jrue Holiday and Khris Middleton, Chicago’s Zach LaVine, Portland’s Damian Lillard, Cleveland’s Kevin Love and Boston’s Jayson Tatum.
Team USA is scheduled to hold its first training camp practice on July 6 in Las Vegas before the Olympic roster departs for Tokyo to open the competition on July 25 against France.
This story was originally published July 1, 2021 at 1:25 PM.
