Could anyone explain the meaning and rhetoric of the following four-letter word?

Late in the third quarter of a March game between the Utah Jazz and
the New Orleans Pelicans, Rudy Gobert, the Jazz’s 7-foot-1 center,
caught a pass and slammed down a dunk as the Pelicans’ Josh Hart leapt
to contest the shot.

As the two National Basketball Association players jogged back down
the court, television viewers could see Mr. Gobert bark out something
to Mr. Hart.

Trash talk? Sort of.

“As I was running back on defense, I told him that would be a nice Top
Shot Moment right there,” Mr. Gobert said in an interview. Mr. Hart
said he had responded with a four-letter word that was not suitable to
be printed.

This is the first sentences of a New York Times article about NFTs, or nonfungible tokens, that features NBA, the American professional basketball league.

The four-letter word mentioned in the last sentence appears to me the f-word. But the use of the indefinite article a indicates a somewhat unsure and unspecific status of that word in question, perhaps creating some humorous effects with the following words that was not suitable to be printed, compared with the case when the expression the four-letter word, with the definite article the, bluntly and unambiguously indicates the one possible word, or the f-word.

Is this understanding correct?

Although this might be a no-brainer for native speakers, this kind of technique employed by a professional writer is difficult for non-natives to comprehend with certainty and confidence.

I deeply appreciate any explanation or suggestion.