The Miami Heat wouldn’t be the team it is nowadays without Erik Spoelstra. From his days in the video room all the way to the bench, leading them to multiple trips to the NBA Finals and two NBA championships.
But as good as he is nowadays, he wasn’t always like that. As it happens in this business, he wasn’t the fanciest candidate for the coaching job when Pat Riley gave him the nod in 2008.
As a matter of fact, Heat legend Dwyane Wade wasn’t much of a fan of his at first, going as far as to say that he was a terrible coach when he got the job. Fortunately, he still decided to work with him.
Dwyane Wade Says Erik Spoelstra Was A Terrible Coach
“I knew Spo. I had a great relationship with Spo because Spo would work me out; he’s my workout guy,” Wade told Shannon Sharpe. “So, I liked Spo, but I didn’t know Spo as a coach. When he first go there, he was a terrible coach, but he was a great guy to prepare you. He was going to work his a** off.”
“No one was going to outwork him,” Wade added. “No one was going to be more prepared than him. He just had to learn when to call timeouts. What plays to run out of timeouts? All these things that you got to learn as a coach. As a star player, I had to go to work with the coach and that’s why our relationship is what it is today.”
Spoelstra worked his way up the ladder and became one of the best tacticians in the game. That’s a reminder for all teams out there firing their coaches after one or two bad seasons.