Erik Spoelstra has been around for what seems like a lifetime when it comes to NBA coaches. He’s won championships and had his share of ups and downs with the Miami Heat.
Spoelstra met with reporters on Wednesday prior to Game 1 of the Eastern Conference finals against the Boston Celtics to discuss the recent wave of coaching terminations across the league, especially Doc Rivers, who was let go from the Philadelphia 76ers following the series loss to Boston.
“It’s disturbing. Doc’s a Hall of Famer,” Spoelstra said, via AfroSportTV. “That’s what 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 staffs. 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.”
Spoelstra took over as the coach of the Heat when Hall of Famer Pat Riley stepped down following the 2007-08 season. Miami won back-to-back NBA championships with Spoelstra in 2011-12 and 2012-13 and has since lost in the finals twice, lost in the first round twice, lost in both the semi and conference finals once and missed the playoffs three times. Even though the final dance was only achieved twice, Spoelstra is one of the NBA’s most successful coaches. He doesn’t understand why a franchise would want to start over.
“I’ve been thinking more about the great proven experienced coaches that have lost their jobs. It just doesn’t make any sense to me,” Spoelstra said. “When you have a proven guy, you have an opportunity to start again without revamping the whole culture and everything. It takes so much time and energy to restart something.”
Spoelstra added he is thankful for the Heat management’s support over the years and not being one of the casualties of the coaching exiles.
“I think that’s part of the reason we’ve been able to reboot so many times over and over and over again,” Spoelstra said. “We’re not reinventing a new culture and then trying to teach everybody and then all of a sudden two or three years later someone else is doing the exact same thing but particularly when you have a proven veteran, it’s just been stunning it really has been disturbing that is this coaching profession, I get it and I’m so thankful and grateful every single day.”
Spoelstra said it’s been a rough couple of weeks hearing of the firings, but battling with the Celtics in the conference finals is the focus of Spoelstra and the No. 8 seed Heat. Miami leads the best-of-seven series after taking Game 1 in Boston on Wednesday night.
