One word that describes how the three-time NBA champion Miami Heat have conducted business since Hall of Famer Pat Riley arrived in South Florida back in the summer of 1995, first as a head coach and then as their President of Basketball Operations is grind. If you wanted to rise and be a major part of the team from the front office to the players on the court, you had to work your tail off to get better. No one has exemplified that better than the latest of NBATV’s “#NBATogether With Ernie Johnson.”
Not too long after Riley was hired as then the Heat’s new head coach that then team director of player personnel Roya Vaziri convinced then General Manager Dave Wohl to offer the position of Heat video coordinator to former player-assistant coach for a German pro basketball club Tus Herten Erik Spoelstra, who today among active head coaches is No. 6 in wins with 564, and among the 332 NBA coaches in its history, he ranks No. 27 with two NBA titles on his career resume so far, along with one title as an assistant on the 2006 squad.
Initially, the position that the now 49-year-old applied for was an internship to help with the 1995 NBA Draft. On top of that, there was a report then that the Heat were going to hire longtime college head coach Bob Huggins to be the team’s new lead man on the sidelines but the current head coach of the West Virginia Mountaineers ended staying at the University of Cincinnati, where he coached from 1989-2005.
When Riley took the job with the Heat, he wanted to bring his entire staff down that was with him in his four years with the New York Knicks, which included then assistant coach Jeff Van Gundy, who now is the lead color analyst for the NBA on ESPN/ABC and then video coordinator Bob Salmi.
The Knicks front office refused to let Riley’s staff out of their deals and Riley ended up hiring Van Gundy’s brother Stan to join his coaching staff on Jeff’s recommendation.
Spoelstra said the only reason stayed on as an intern is because it was so late in the building process of what Riley wanted and that there was no time to train anybody on how he wanted things to be.
It was at this point that the Portland, OR native knew of the unfamiliarity between him and Riley that he had a sort period of time to prove himself.
One specific moment that Coach Spoelstra recalls was a time in that first year of 1995-96 when Riley wanted him to put together a music video for the next day, containing clips of Mourning doing one thing, with Vernell “Bimbo” Coles doing something else. He also wanted this video to be a “Hollywood” produced production that is “emotional” with “highlights.”
To that point, all Spoelstra had done in the video editing room as piece together things like pick-and-roll cutups and defensive breakdowns.
He proved himself to the point that he has spent a quarter century with the organization, where he grinded his way up the ranks with the Heat going from strictly being a video coordinator for two years, then spending another two years as an assistant coach/video coordinator. He was then promoted to assistant coach/advance scout in 1999 and then became the Heat’s assistant coach/director of scouting in 2001 to eventually becoming a full-time assistant and eventually taking over for Riley as the lead man on the sidelines for the Heat, where he has won two championships.
When the NBA suspended play back on Mar. 12 because of the Coronavirus (COVID-19) Pandemic, Coach Spoelstra’s squad was in the No. 4 spot in the Eastern Conference with a 41-24 mark, just 2.5 games behind the No. 3 Seeded Boston Celtics. The Heat had a chance to clinch a playoff spot before the league suspended play because of the pandemic, but their tilt versus the Charlotte Hornets (23-42) 109-98 the night before.
These days, Spoelstra like all of us across the globe is spending a majority of his day at home with his wife of three years in former Heat cheerleader Nikki Sapp and their two boys on the edge of two years old.
Along with tending to his duties as a husband and father, Spoelstra told NBA on TNT studio host and lead host of TNT’s “Inside the NBA” that he has been on a lot of Zoom calls in trying to gather more information and “communicate” that information.
“Each county, city, state is different. But I really commend Adam Silver,” Coach Spoelstra said of the NBA Commissioner’s handling of this pandemic. “His leadership and the NBA office’s quite frankly have been so reassuring. And the world is starting to incrementally take a small step forward.”
Coach Spoelstra during this time has also maintained close communication with the Heat organization as well as his players from their daily workouts over Zoom, which he says is more of way of staying connected, being able to share a good laugh, and keeping a consistent routine.
Anyone who has followed basketball close is not surprised on how the Miami Heat have operated during this time of uncertainty in not just of whether the NBA season will resume once it is safe to do so.
In his time as an assistant coach, Spoelstra worked a great deal with future Hall of Famer Dwyane Wade on improving his balance on his jump shot after returning from the 2004 Olympic Summer Olympics in Athens, Greece. That improved jump shot was a big reason why the Heat took down the Dallas Mavericks in the 2006 Finals to win their first title in franchise history, with Wade winning Finals MVP.
The kind of work Spoelstra put in to help Wade become a more effective jump shooter is the same work he put in that made him into a great lead guard for Jesuit High School in Beaverton, OR.
Before his senior year of high school, Spoelstra was a participant in former sports marketing executive Sonny Vaccaro’s Nike All-Star camp in Princeton, NJ where he was alongside future NBA stars in Hall of Famer Alonzo Mourning, who he would eventually coach, and now works in the Heat’s front office, Shawn Kemp, Billy Owens and Bobby Hurley, who Spoelstra told Johnson that he “kicked” his butt.
After graduating from high school, Spoelstra accepted a scholarship from the University of Portland, where in his four years as a member of the Pilots basketball team was named West Coast Conference Freshmen of the Year; became a member of the school’s 1,000-point club and finished his collegiate career (1988-92) as their career leader in several categories.
His jersey number with the Pilots was No. 30 in his high school and then as a collegian in honor of then All-Star lead guard for the Portland Trail Blazers Terry Porter, one of his favorite NBA players.
“As a young player, I really looked up to Terry Porter. Actually, everybody in Portland did,” Spoelstra said of how much Oregonians loved the Wisconsin Stevens Point grad. “Clyde Drexler was the best player, and everybody loved him. He was the Hall of Famer, and he was the talent thar drove that team. Those early 90s Portland Trail Blazer teams.”
“But if you asked a lot of Portlanders who their favorite Trail Blazer was, I think a lot of people would say Terry Porter.”
It also helped Spoelstra that his father Jon, who was his son’s first basketball coach was a longtime NBA executive who worked for the then Buffalo Braves, now Los Angeles Clippers, the aforementioned Trail Blazers, Denver Nuggets, and then New Jersey, now Brooklyn Nets.
“I played enough that I had a passion for the game,” Spoelstra said about his playing days as a high school and a collegian. “I feel very fortunate enough that I grew up in an NBA family. So, my dad obviously worked in the NBA for many years…And what it did was spark a great passion for this sport.”
In terms of becoming a head coach, Spoelstra had no thoughts of being a leader of a team on the sidelines when he was a video coordinator. He said he was just trying to learn the NBA and eventually be a high school or college coach.
It was not until he got the opportunity to work with Stan Van Gundy, who Spoelstra calls his “biggest” mentor and was the first coach that gave him “confidence” that he could be a leader of men.
In fact, Spoelstra said that Van Gundy wrote him a letter once that he still has today, which said, “You can be a head coach in this league. You need to start thinking differently and open up your mind to that.”
It also helped seeing Van Gundy’s brother Jeff, who took a different path to get his chance with the New York Knicks back in the 1990s where he replaced Hall of Famer Don Nelson in the middle of the 1995-96 season and remained there for six-plus years.
Before, when an assistant coach moved up to head coach, it was to keep the head coaching seat warm.
Spoelstra’s chance to be a head coach came in Apr. 2008 when on a Saturday Riley brought him in after the team’s season finished at 15-67.
Riley had joked with Spoelstra on a few occasions that season when he would sit across from him on the team’s private plane after a brutal loss, and he would be working on the video edits that Riley would want that he would tell him that he would be the Heat’s new head coach the next season.
Spoelstra said that use to “freak” him out and intimidating to him at the time, especially because two years prior they won it all that consisted of a lot of huge personalities from Wade, Mourning, Hall of Famer and current NBATV/NBA on TNT studio analyst Shaquille O’Neal, Gary Payton, Jason Williams, Antoine Walker and James Posey.
So, on that Saturday in similar fashion of a scene from the “God Father” movies had the lights down as Spoelstra sat on the other side of his boss’s desk, barely making out his face and he said, “I’m done.”
“You knew this day was coming, and you’re ready for it. This is going to be like you’re up in a bird’s nest and I’m just going to push you off the branch. And you’re gonna have to figure out how fly…. This is happening and Monday is the press conference. All right thanks, see you then.”
After two years of modest success, winning 43 and 47 games respectably, making the playoffs but flaming out in the First-Round of the Playoffs first to the Atlanta Hawks in 2009 and then the Boston Celtics in seven and five games respectably, expectations changed very quickly in the summer of 2010 when the Heat not only re-signed Wade in free agency, but signed two of the biggest fish in the league’s free agent waters that summer in then two-time Kia MVP in LeBron James and perennial All-Star Chris Bosh.
They were especially raised after the opening pressure introducing the newest “Big Three” where James said when asked by the Heat’s longtime play-by-play commentator Eric Reid about how many titles and James replied with a smile, “Not two, not three, not four, not five, not six, not seven.”
At age 39, Spoelstra was faced with the daunting task of being able to handle the big personalities of Wade, James, and Bosh, while steering the team as a whole in the direction of being a team that competes for a championship.
For Spoelstra, he had worked for Riley long enough that he understood that the vision was bigger than just making the playoffs and hopefully winning a round or two. It was about winning more Larry O’Brien trophies.
In the first season of the “Big Three era” the Heat did not get off to a rousing start starting off 9-8 in the 2010-11 NBA season, and the moment that really encapsulated how tough things were early on when James entering a timeout bumped Spoelstra as he was heading to the bench in the team’s 106-95 loss on Nov. 27, 2010 at the Dallas Mavericks.
When asked about that moment by Johnson, Coach Spoelstra said while smiling, “No. I don’t think so.”
He also said that moments like that when you are on a team where they microscope is squared on you at all times get “micro analyzed.”
The Heat though responded well as they rattled off 12 straight wins, which was in a stretch of compiling 21 wins in their next 23 games.
That rough start looking back at it turned out as Spoelstra said to be a good thing to go through that “fish bowl pressure” and everyone in the media “over analyzing” every little detail, which allowed the Heat to ignore the outside noise and just focus on themselves and what they needed to do to string wins consistently together.
What also happened for at least the next two weeks then, James and Spoelstra would walk by each other in the hallways of the Heat’s training complex and “literally” bump into each other as a way to laugh off the situation.
All joking to the side though, Coach Spoelstra having grown up in the NBA being around his father he always thought that the opportunity that he had as Heat head coach could end in an instant, especially with the expectations of being one of those few teams in “The Association” that is expected to be playing well into June.
Even with the fact that Spoelstra was working for well respected people in the NBA in Heat owner Micky Arison and Riley, there is always the reality that they could make a coaching change if necessary.
“There’s constant change in this league,” Spoelstra said. “It really is a blessing that we’ve been able to work for people like Micky and Pat who really believe in that continuity, and its lasted for 25 years. Its proven itself.”
It is something that Coach Spoelstra has said all the time, which is something Riley does not like that he has but if Spoelstra was working for a different organization, a different owner and president under the circumstances the Heat were in back in 2010 he would have gotten the axe three or four different times, particularly after a team with stars that had Wade, James, and Bosh and they got off to a 9-8 start.
Riley and the Heat just stayed the course and perhaps gets more resolve when anyone outside the organization is forcing him to do something outside his thinking. It is when he will dig in even more, win lose or draw, which has been his personality from his time as a player, as a head coach and as an executive.
Spoelstra was always aware that things could change, especially after the Heat lost in The Finals in 2011 to the Mavericks in six games, and the second lockout the NBA had in the last 15 seasons occurred.
Throughout the summer and right up until the end of the lockout, everyone was saying that Coach Spoelstra needed to go and the “Big Three” after just one season together needed to be broken up.
Coach Spoelstra remained, earning a $6 million contract extension in December 2011 and Wade, James, and Bosh, also remained. The Heat added to their roster through free agency Shane Battier and selected in the 2011 draft Norris Cole No. 28 overall out of Cleveland State. Also, Spoelstra received
The team in the 66-game shortened season finished 46-20 and took down the Knicks and Indiana Pacers in five and six games respectably in the first two rounds of the 2012 postseason.
The really pressure though came in the Eastern Conference Finals to the Celtics as the Heat were down 3-2 heading into Game 6 on June 7, 2012 at TD Garden and James delivered in what The New York Times called a “career-defining performance of 45 points and 15 rebounds to help the Heat to the 98-79 win to even the series. The Heat closed out the Celtics in Game 7 versus the Celtics two nights later behind the 31 points and 12 rebounds from James; the 23 points, six rebounds and six assists from Wade; and the 19 points and eight rebounds off the bench from Bosh.
“If we don’t have that game, you just never know because of the context and the pressure of that team whether you’re gonna still get a chance to keep on coming back and get another swing at it,” Spoelstra said of the importance of what James did in Game 6 at the Celtics.
After falling in Game 1 of the 2012 Finals to the Oklahoma City Thunder, the Heat went on to win the next four games of that series, winning it in five games and capturing their second title in franchise history. It was the first for James and Bosh, and Wade earned his second ring.
The 2012-13 season was the best in the Heat’s history winning a franchise record 66 games, which included the second-longest winning streak in NBA history of 27 straight wins from Feb. 3-Mar. 27, 2013. James won his named Kia MVP for a second straight season.
After a 4-0 sweep of the Milwaukee Bucks in the First-Round and taking out the Chicago Bulls in the Semifinals 4-1, the Heat struggled against the Pacers but eventually took them out in seven games of the Eastern Conference Finals.
For a second straight season, the Heat’s championship dreams were going to come up short as they trailed late in Game 6 of the 2013 Finals versus the then four-time NBA champion San Antonio Spurs trailing by 10 points entering the fourth quarter.
The Heat roared back into the contest thanks to James scoring 16 points in the final frame, but the Heat still trailed with mere seconds.
After James missed the game-tying three-pointer, Bosh gathered the offensive rebound and found Ray Allen in the right-hand corner and he made the game-tying three with 05.2 seconds remaining. The Heat counting the fourth quarter and overtime outscored the Spurs 38-25 and won Game 6 103-100 on June 18, 2013.
The Heat then managed to defeat the Spurs two nights later 95-88, behind the 37 points and 12 rebounds from James to win their second straight title and James captured his second straight Finals MVP.
While the offensive rebound by Bosh and being able to find Allen for the tying triple in Game 6 was remarkable, it was Allen’s ability to take the shot without having the back of his feet going out of bounds.
It was something Spoelstra said that the future Hall of Famer, who signed as a free agent in the summer of 2012 came into the Heat’s practice facility in early September for informal workouts and he worked on a specific drill with one of the Heat’s assistant coaches where Allen would lay down in the middle of the key, and then pop up, back peddle and then ask the coach to throw him the ball.
As Coach Spoelstra watched Allen do this drill 25-30 times, he went up to him an asked him what is this drill?
Allen said that he always wanted to prepare himself when an offensive rebound is gathered that he wanted to be able to backup, back pedal, and not have to look at his feet to know if he is still in bounds but still behind the three-point line, which Coach Spoelstra said he would shoot the ball from the corners.
“It’s was so fitting that was the shot that forced the game to go into overtime,” Spoelstra said of the one of the greatest shots in NBA postseason history, which he has seen on NBATV in recent weeks. “It’s been fun to reminisce, but it’s been really cool to text with the guys from that team as different moments happen. Ray and I were texting about that, and I reminded him about that drill the first time we saw it.”
Allen reminded Spoelstra in that text that he should implore the young sharp shooters on the Heat now in rookie Tyler Herro and second-year player Duncan Robinson to practice that drill as well.
On Sept. 29, 2013, Spoelstra, who became the eighth head coach in NBA history to lead his team to consecutive NBA titles earned a multi-year contract extension, where he earned an even bigger role in the Heat’s front office.
The Heat made it back to The Finals the next season facing the Spurs once again, but they lost to them in five games.
In the years that followed the 2013-14, the “Big Three” went their separate ways with James returning to Cleveland the summer of 2014 and now is with the Los Angeles Lakers.
Two separate incidents of blood clots in his leg eventually ended Bosh’s career in the NBA in June 2017, while a contract dispute between Wade and Riley forced the best player in franchise history to first return home to play for the Chicago Bulls on a two-year, $47 million deal for the 2016-17 season before being bought out the next summer and reuniting with James with the Cavaliers for the 2017-18 season.
Wade was eventually returned to the Heat after being dealt back to his first NBA team at the Feb. 8, 2018 trade deadline.
The next season would be the last for Wade, which he announced before the start of last season and he registered 30 points in his last home game at the American Airlines Arena, a 122-99 Heat victory versus the Philadelphia 76ers on Apr. 9, 2019.
Wade capped off his 16-year career with his fifth career triple-double of 25 points, 10 assists and 11 rebounds one night later in the Heat’s 113-94 loss at the Brooklyn Nets.
A quarter of a century ago, Hall of Famer Pat Riley came to South Florida to turn the Miami Heat into a championship squad. He did that and along side him during this journey was a young man in Erik Spoelstra, who went from being the team’s video coordinator to his successor.
Coach Spoelstra got to where he is by having a passion for basketball and simply working hard each day to get better and he has gotten better each day to the point he went from hoping to be a high school or college coach to being the longest tenured head coach in the Eastern Conference with two NBA titles to his credit, and is the all-time leader in wins by a head coach in Heat history, surpassing Riley when the Heat defeated the Clippers 90-85 on Dec. 16, 2017 with his 455th career victory.
More than anything what Coach Spoelstra’s journey shows is the value of having an organization and the people who are the key decision makers believe in you. Having solid co-workers who respect and believe in your ability, and players who respect your authority enough as well as the standard of the program you have in place to bring their best from practice to gameday on a daily basis to give themselves individually and collectively the best chance to succeed.
With the team they have now in place with All-Stars Jimmy Butler and Bam Adebayo, rookies Tyler Herro and Kendrick Nunn, second-year sharp-shooter Duncan Robinson, Derrick Jones, Jr. and Kelly Olynyk, the Heat with Coach Spoelstra leading them from the sidelines have a chance to competing for titles again if play resumes this season and in the future, especially with a great front office led by Rile and owner Micky Arison.
Information, statistics, and quotations are courtesy of 3/11/2020 scores from www.nba.com; 5/11/2020 5:30 p.m. edition of NBATV’s “#NBATogether With Ernie Johnson: Erick Spoelstra;” Page 141 History Team by Team section of the “Sporting News’ Official 2006-07 NBA Guide;” https://www.espn.com/nba/standings; https://www.espn.com/nba/team/schedule/_/name/mia; https://www.basketball-reference.com/boxscores/201206090MIA.html; https://www.basketball-reference.com/coaches/salmibo01c.html https://www.basketball-reference.com/boxscores/201306200MIA.html; https://www.basketball-reference.com/boxscores/20130618MIA.html; https://www.basketball-reference.com/teams/MIA/2019_games.html; https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miami_Heat; https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Bosh#Comeback_attempts_and_retirement_(2016-2019); https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/LeBron_James; https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dwyane_Wade#Chicago_Bulls_and_Cleveland_Cavaliers_(2016-2018); https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dwyane_Wade#Return_to_Miami_(2018-19); https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Miami_Heat_seasons; https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pat_Riley#Coaching_statistics; and https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erik_Spoelstra.
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