Where does Erik Spoelstra rank amongst coaches in the NBA all-time?
USA TODAY Sports’ Jeff Zillgitt explains that while he’s never won a NBA Coach of the Year Award, Erik Spoelstra still deserves to be discussed amongst the greatest coaches of all time.
Sports Seriously, USA TODAY
Miami Heat head coach Erik Spoelstra says the recent wave of NBA coach firings has been “disturbing.”
“It’s disturbing,” Spoelstra said on Wednesday ahead of Game 1 of the Eastern Conference finals between the Heat and Boston Celtics. “It’s been a tough couple of weeks hearing the news of some just really surprising firings.”
Doc Rivers is the latest head coach to be fired after the Philadelphia 76ers parted ways following the Sixers’ Game 7 blowout loss to the Celtics. Mike Budenholzer, Monty Williams and Nick Nurse are also out of jobs after their teams – the Milwaukee Bucks, Phoenix Suns and Toronto Raptors, respectively – were unceremoniously ousted from the 2023 NBA playoffs and play-in tournament.
“Doc’s a Hall of Famer,” Spoelstra said Wednesday. “That’s what (Heat GM) Andy (Elisburg) always says, too, you get past the first round, there’s gonna be some really good teams. Great players, great organizations, great coaching staff. They’re going to lose just by the nature of this beast. There’s only so many teams that can advance. It’s just a really hard thing to do.”
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Spoelstra succeeded Pat Riley as Miami’s head coach in 2008 and is the second-longest tenured head coach behind the Spurs’ Gregg Popovich, who has coached San Antonino since 1996. Spoelstra has won two NBA championships in 2012 and 2013, a similar resume to the “great, proven, experienced coaches that have lost their jobs already.”
Budenholzer led the Bucks to the 2021 title and the NBA’s best record during this past regular season. Williams led the Suns to the 2021 NBA Finals and was named Coach of the Year in 2021-22 after the Suns posted the NBA’s best record. Nurse and the Raptors won it all in 2019.
“It just doesn’t make sense to me… To have proven veteran guys (fired), it’s just been stunning. It really has been disturbing,” Spoelstra said on Monday. “That is this coaching profession, I get it. And I’m so thankful and grateful every single day working for (the Heat organization)… particularly when things get tough. It’s a blessing to go through tough times.”
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Spoelstra said the Heat have been able to continually reach success because they’ve been able to grow from adversity, something some franchises don’t give their coaches time to do.
“It takes so much time and energy to restart something,” Spoelstra said. “And I think that’s part of the reason why we’ve been able to reboot so many times, over and over and over. We’re not reinventing a new culture and then trying to teach everybody and then all of a sudden, two years later, it’s going to be somebody else doing the exact same thing.”
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