Coach Erik Spoelstra signs fresh multi-year contract with Miami Heat
Erik Spoelstra has been with the Miami Heat for nearly two decades and their relationship is unlikely to end soon. Spoelstra had signed a multi-year extension to remain as coach of the two-time defending NBA champions, the team said.
Erik Spoelstra has been with the Miami Heat for nearly two decades and their relationship is unlikely to end soon.
Spoelstra had signed a multi-year extension to remain as coach of the two-time defending NBA champions, the team said.
The move comes a day after the Heat announced several other front-office moves, including the promotion of Andy Elisburg to general manager and hiring Juwan Howard as an assistant coach.
An NBA source said the Heat had never had any intention of letting Spoelstra go. He had one season remaining on his existing contract, a deal that the sides agreed to in 2011.
"I want Spo here for a long, long time," Heat president Pat Riley said last season.
Spoelstra is 260-134 in his first five seasons with Miami, going to the play-offs in each of those years, the NBA finals in each of the past three and winning the title last year and this year.
His résumé suggests that he is already well on the path to a Hall of Fame honour. Only 12 other men in NBA history won multiple championships as a coach, and only seven others have collected rings in back-to-back years.
He has won while helping LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh not only figure out ways to play with one another, but having each of those stars change their game to make everything fit within the Heat system.
Last season may have been Spoelstra's best coaching job.
The Heat rolled through the regular season, winning 27 straight games at one point on the way to a 66-16 record. Then in the play-offs, Miami had to rally from a 1-0 second-round deficit against Chicago and ultimately had to grind out seven-game victories over Indiana in the Eastern Conference finals and San Antonio in the NBA finals.
"What's overlooked for him is the management of the team," Wade said last season. "It's not the coaching part of it. It's, 'Can you manage these egos, these personalities, without having one your damn self?' He's done it."
Hired as a video co-ordinator by the Heat in 1995, Spoelstra's rise through the ranks has been well-chronicled.
He was a scout, an assistant coach, a key part of Stan Van Gundy's staff in Miami and then started becoming considered Riley's protégé not long after Van Gundy stepped down 21 games into what became a championship season for the Heat in 2005-06.
Riley retired for good in 2008, and the Heat did not wait long before making Spoelstra the head coach. He inherited a 15-win team and improved it by 28 games in his first year.
The Heat went back to the play-offs in 2010, then found a way to keep Wade while landing James, Bosh and other players the following summer on their way to making three straight trips to the NBA finals.
