[Fizdale] on Erik Spoelstra: “This guys gonna go down as one of the greatest coaches to ever coach the game… I’ve seen Pat Riley threaten superstars with ‘I’ll trade you before I fire him’. ”
How Spo never won coach of the year still amazes me
I feel like COTY typically goes to a new coach on a team with a decent win improvement in a year. Which makes sense in theory, but there are definitely times when he vastly surpassed what the Heat really should have done in a season.
Yea, this is true in most pro sports. COTY is basically the MIT (Most Improved Team) award. Perennially great coaches just don’t truly get the recognition they deserve.
Which is really dumb because more often than not the improved team has more to do with players than coaches.
Yeah, makes more sense for football imo
Idk in football coach of the year is basically on the hot seat a year or two later half the time. See Brian Daboll or Kevin stefanskoi for instance
Same in the NBA
There used to be strong talk of coty curse in the nba
The real coach of the year gets a championship ring.
another reason these nba “awards” are all fucking bullshit.
Spo no COY and Duncan no DPOY are the two that look awful in the grand scheme of things.
We clowned on Duncan as kids because he wasn’t flashy, but looking back he was a monster on both ends of the court. He might have been “boring” (our words at the time), but goddamn was he effective.
Yeah he was just big on fundamentals.
That’s why they called him Bully Basics
Say that again…
That again.
Is it just me or was duncan like the only guy to consistently block balls in bounds so it could cause a turnover. Everyone else is out here flinging shit i to the stands.
Some players were just ego blocking. He was always playing team ball. His bank shots are team ball and you can’t convince me otherwise.
There was an article back in the day and it talked about how Dwight Howard used to block shots and they’d goin the fourth row but Duncan would tip them and win possession. It was like way before analytics so that was maybe my introduction analytics but it blew my mind that not all blocks are equal
I remember seeing an interview with Ewing back in the day and he said early in his career he always tried to hit the ball as far into the stands as he could. It was only later in his career he started intentionally trying to keep it in.
Bill Russell was famously doing it before duncan was even born
Used to be mentioned as contrast to Wilt, and how bill’s blocks would ignite boston fast breaks
Want a crazy Tim Duncan stat? Tim Duncan played more seasons in the NBA than he had career goaltends. Fucking wild.
I tell people Duncan is to defense what Jokic is to offense. This anchor that you build around because he’s just that much better than everyone else, and it makes that side of the ball good enough to carry you to a championship (or several)
He’s arguably the perfect superstar. Great at all aspects of the game, wasn’t flashy, never sought attention, did his job and even took less money so his team could get better.
Perfect if you’re a fan of the team. Not so great for marketing the league.
Scott Brooks and Marc Gasol on the other hand 🤣
Yeah. He wasn’t seen as anything special before the Heatles and then he was never going to get the credit during the Heatles era. By the time that era was over he was already established so he never got that overachieving/surprise factor that usually gets COTY.
2022 could’ve been his year but Monty Williams had a really strong narrative that year and his team won 11 more games.
tbf is hindsight getting a team were old jermaine o’neal was the 2nd best player to the playoffs was a pretty good achievement
COTY is by far my least favorite award with how it gets awarded. Like you said it’s typically going to a coach with a new team that has a decent turn around.
COTY has always been a bit fraudulent. The problem is that a lot of fans think “the best coach” is just a guy who is the smartest at basketball. But different teams have different needs both in terms of X’s/O’s and emotionally, plus there’s an entire staff behind the coach. There’s just too many dimensions to say who the best one in a year is from the outside looking in
It makes no sense to award it based on the regular season when the real coaching in the NBA is done in the playoffs. Regular season coaching is more just managing egos and motivating guys. The Xs and Os become way more important in the playoffs.
“Coach of the Playoffs” is just the championship coach though. At least for Finals MVP, and now with the CF MVP trophies, there are 15 guys you can choose from (technically 30, but after LeBron lost to Iguodala a losing team member is surely never winning again)
Carlisle was definitely the coach of this last playoffs and he didn’t win. Spoelstra was a better coach than Vogel when the Lakers won, his coaching just didn’t overcome the talent gap.
I feel like official postseason rewards like “best coach” have the downsides of does the person really want to hear they got best X when they just lost their entire season. And also I feel like they run the risk of taking away from the championship team’s moment
He didn’t win it in his first couple of years because of course he’s successful, he has LeBron, Wade, & Bosh. Then everyone realized he was a beast himself, and by the time they all left, he was too good and everyone expected success out of him now. This has kept him from winning what is basically the “Who achieved the most over expectations” award. Everyone always expects Miami to be good, partially because of Spo, and he is punished in award voting for it.
the issue for spo winning the coty is that usually that “vastly surpassing” comes in the playoffs rather than the regular season which isnt factored into the award
Yeah I mean in theory that award would’ve been Pop’s for a decade in a row up until probably the rise of the Warriors.
Best not to win it, that’s how he never gets fired.
Spo truly believes that to, says it all the time.
All about managing expectations baby
Spo has the championship, but I still think Jazz fans would argue Sloan is still the best to never win
Because COY usually goes to a team that performed beyond expectations. That’s why they’re often fired the next year when the team returns to their mean.
Spo is expected to make any roster competitive every season.
It’s a narrative driven reward. Otherwise, Spo and Pop would have just traded them back and forth for most of the past 20 years.
Sometimes they’ll fire you the same year you win it 😀
And both times it happened it was Masai Ujiri who made the call. Nick Nurse was probably shitting bricks when he won it
So, basically a fake award
Phil Jackson won COTY once in his career and it took a historic season, Larry Brown doesn’t have an NBA COTY either
Why do people think the award is best coach, it’s literally “overperforming coach of the year”
Because the name of the award is misleading. Just from the name, COTY sounds more analogous to MVP or DPOY. In actual voting, it’s treated more like MIP
The name for most NBA awards is misleading
MVP is also heavily misleading too, it has never been about most valuable player or otherwise you would have people like MJ/LeBron/Kareem having 2x more MVPS than they already do
It’s a narrative award, very common in the NBA
Larry Brown won it in Iversons MVP season
Phil Jackson had 3 of the top 15 and another in the top 25 all time. That kinda helps.
Jerry Sloan never won it either. Tim Duncan never won DPOY.
TD not winning DPOY is a fucking crime against basketball. Tim was never good, or above average, he was elite at EVERY aspect of the game and defense might be his strongest, most consistent part of his immaculate game.
Well…if you’re a Pistons fan, you would know that one dude was primarily responsible for Duncan not getting that DPOY for many many years during his prime
lol
TD was an elite, HoFer the moment his shoes touched the court. Ben Wallace was not.
There were plenty of other years he should have.
AD is going to retire without DPOY, mark my words
At this point he might just get a lifetime achievement COTY award
Should’ve won’t COTY when Miami finished the number 1 seed in 2021-22 (I think). Miami was dealing with a lot of missed games between Jimmy and Bam for a good chunk of the season. Omer Yurtseven was the starting center for a hot minute. And Miami still finished as the 1 seed.
Award went to Monty Williams, who’s now coaching his son’s high school team, just saying.
Before the ‘10s, Popovich, Phil Jackson, and Jerry Sloan combined for 2 coach of the year. Then Pop went on to win 2 more in the first half of the ‘10s.
Coach of the year is an award that likes to be given to teams without the most elite players that outperformed expectation. It’s not actually given to coaches. Lets be real, the voters aren’t actually qualify to accurately judge coaches (most people here, myself included, aren’t either). They just look at the team record, subtract the players name brand, and say that’s a coaching job.
This is the year 🙏
He never got credit during the Heatles run, and since then his regular season team records haven’t been stellar so he’s never in contention for the award. But every year post-Heatles, he’s either overachieved with mediocre rosters or maximized his good rosters to a finals appearance. If they gave out playoff COTY, I’m sure he would’ve won a few.
It’s a good omen, many COTY winners get fired within a few years from the team they won the award with.
Spoelstra is an excellent coach but things just haven’t really lined up for him to win the award. A lot like Manu with the 6th man award.
Usually COTY is going to ~60-win teams or ~50 win teams that see a major turnaround specifically coming off a newer coaching hire. It’s clear that Spo is better than a lot of the coaches that ultimately win the award, but 40-something win teams just aren’t really garnering COTY.
The best chance he had was the 66-win season with Miami, but I think Karl with that Denver squad was deserving.
I feel like he might win it this year.
We make a top 4 seed this squad he should get some consideration.
It’s definitely because once you get recognized as a great coach, it’s hard to win COTY because you’re expected to be a great coach every year.
Votes usually go to “we thought this team would suck/we didn’t know this team could be that great!”
They overlooked him when he had all the talent and then he was the vet coach and the vet coach has to be like the best team in the league to win it and that’s not been them since even though they’ve almost always overproduced
Cause then they’d have to fire him.
I hope he never wins.
Jerry Sloan sheds 1,223 tears.
Ranked fourth in all-time regular-season wins with 1,221 victories.
Led the Jazz to 15 consecutive playoff appearances from 1989 to 2003.
Ranked second in playoff wins among coaches who have not won a championship, with 98 playoff wins.
wait, what? he hasn’t?? 🤯
Coty is almost like MIP. Spo’s heat teams are rarely bad even when they should be.
Because he either wins with a massively talented team or pulls off some playoff miracle after the votes have been tallied.
Tbf, I think he plans to retire with the heat, and usually people care more about accolades like that for their resume. He’ll end up as the coach with the most wins all time I’m sure, if he coaches til his 60s. Two chips already, some all time great finals appearances, and the full support of your organization. There’s not much as a coach in his position I’d be wanting, except for more wins/chips
That award is like the career kiss of death
Spo is a HoF coach, But it amuses me that he was a nepo hire in the nba
Dad was a great GM. Traded a few hours of his time for a point guard. Was well known for his innovative approach that made even small market teams like blazers profitable
Because it usually doesn’t go to best coach. It goes to coach of the team that is massively over performing this year and having a great year. If there’s no massive over performers than it goes to the best coach with a team with a good record
How many COTY were fired with 2 years of winning the award? A lot. Dwayne Casey won it then got fired same year after poor playoff performance, that award is worthless
COTY is the exceeded expectations award. It’s why so many coaches that win it also immediately get fired
He doesn’t really want it. Says so all the time. Lots of award winners lose their jobs. So it’s not really an award that I think he values highly. He’ll definitely want his HOF flowers though.
I think he understands that he’s already highly respected around the league. No award needed to validate that.
He doesn’t get enough credit for putting Bosh at the 5 and really ushering in the pace and space era. He was the first one to really start mixing modern situational zone schemes into his defense and now tons of teams do it. He was the first one introduce the build a wall strategy against Giannis. Generational coach who has always been able to adapt and stay one step ahead of the trends in the league.
I will never forget, he made Pop flinch when Spo put Bosh on the floor at the end of Game 6. Pops reacted and went small to match, and that allowed Bosh to get the rebound and assist to Ray.
Bosh was so vital to that roster. The small ball doesn’t work without him. Joel Anthony was such a nightmare when he got on.
One of the greatest chess moves a coach has done
Just behind Monty’s quiet quitting while securing the bag chess moves.
The pistons flair makes ths so funny ahaha
Greatest one year deal in NBA history no?
1yr/for a guaranteed $78M
Nba player is not gonna pass that for 10 to 20 years lmao
GOAT shit.
Honorable mentions to Mike Brown when he was collecting checks from like 4 teams for a while lol
Spo always said Bosh was the most important player on that team. What he brought, the spacing, versatility, and defensive flexibility, just couldn’t be replicated by anyone else on the roster. Obviously LeBron and Wade were the better overall players, but their games overlapped a lot more.
not just spo, lebron and wade say the same thing about bosh. which is y it always surprises me when the “bosh is overrated” posts randomly pop up
If someone says bosh is overrated. They should stop talking about basketball.
Similar to how people talk about the 90s bulls or the quality of players in the 60s or or or… sometimes it feels like basketball fans hate basketball lol
It shouldn’t. Lebron fans do their best to act like he won by himself. Acting like Wade was washed up already when they won together for the first time, despite the fact Wade played for nearly another decade
And that Wade would have been the FMVP in 2011 if LeBron played slightly less bad.
I agree they don’t win without Bosh in 2013, but I was curious and funny enough they were 8-0 without him
Joel Anthony was such a nightmare when he got on.
I remember that interregnum where the Heat hadn’t figure out the Bosh at the 5 situation and brought in Eddy Curry (who didn’t end up playing much anyway, he was already cooked at that point) to back up Joel 💀💀💀💀💀 like it was a thing people talked about lmao
Someone should do a documentary about that series.
Bosh’s blood clot situation set us back so many years.
A team with healthy Bosh, Wade (had he stayed for those last couple highly effective years), and Dragon, would’ve given LeBron fits in the East.
Even if the Heat don’t win another title with those guys, they would’ve gotten to another Finals.
Between Zo and Bosh, we’ve gotten really unlucky with illnesses that go beyond a normal injury.
It sounds like he isn’t one step ahead of the trends, but rather he is setting them
Yup, this move away from PnR and DHO to a quicker triangle offense (which the Grizzlies implemented with Noah LaRoche) is going to be the new trend, I bet.
Phil Jackson is probably grinning from beyond the grave.
*cuervos, I assure you, Phil Jackson is very much alive.
Ushering in….wtf dude. Mike Dantoni and Steve Nash, end of story. I know we are glazing spo, and he deserves it, but not like this. Hell I would say Orlando was more influential than spo in this regard.
They started it and played the framework for sure, but they didn’t win. The Heat won with Bosh at the 5 and the rest of the league started moving to a small ball era
Mike, Dan, and Tony had the Matrix playing the 5
I’ve always seen Rashard Lewis as a 3 and I loved those Sonics teams with Ray up until he got to the Magic and he became a 4
Heat figured out how to use traps to neutralize Trae Young in the playoffs and every team then followed their example to the point where the team construction today for the Hawks around Trae is now completely different from their miracle ECF run.
Toronto used the “build a wall” strategy against Giannis in games 3-6 of the ECF in 2019, before Giannis ever played Spo and the Heat in the playoffs.
https://allucanheat.com/2019/05/02/miami-heat-blueprint-stopping-giannis/ Spoelstra did it before Nick Nurse in the regular season
He evolved the Don Nelson position less basketball. He did not create it
Don Nelson would like a word.
who was first hawks with al horford or heat with bosh?
This…there’s no Warriors or modern positionless basketball w/ o Spo (and of course Pop)
And now he’s running like zero pick and rolls
I agree he’s responsible for some brilliant league-changing coaching, but let’s not give him credit for pace and space when D’Antoni moved Stoudemire to the 5 almost a decade prior. Same goes for the defensive schemes, he really just riffed on what Thibs did when Thibs built the KG Celtics championship D.
David Fizdale was the worst coach I have ever watched
Jim Boylen is calling you right now!!
Darvin Ham has his hands in his pockets as we speak
darvin ham went to ecf with AR and Dlo as perimeter defense
taking the lakers to the eastern conference finals is an incredible feat, i’ll give him that
man salute
And won the first 2 NBA Cups
you mean wcf ?
Puke Walton would like a word
Fizdale was generationally bad
Obviously I’m biased but truly I think Boylen is the 2nd worst coach I’ve seen in any sport ever
NFL Urban Meyer takes the crown though
I’ve asked him several times to leave my family and I alone.
I remember having humorous debates with Bulls fans about who had the worse head coach at the time. Every time the pendulum would swing to one of Fizdale or Boylen, the other would do something so stupid that it’d swing the other way almost instantly.
There are a handful of less than impressive coaches today, but Fizdale and Boylen put them to shame on that front. They were two of the worst head coaches since the turn of the millennium, if not the entire history of the league.
Atleast Jim was a Zaddy
thug behavior
Take that for data
Why is he even a talking head lol
Never caught a game with Dwayne Casey did you?
Of course not, because Dwane’s problem area was in the playoffs (3 sweeps in 4 seasons???), and Boylen and Fiz (as a Knick) never reached those
Tarkanians tenure
As a Pistons fan, Monty is a basketball terrorist.
Someone who’s never had to see Jacque Vaughn or Steve Nash coach before
You forgot how bad the Fisher years and the Hornacek years were.
Also why does Fisher get a pass when he never coached for another team after his abysmal time at the Knicks?
Remember when Bron tried to get Spo fired?
Pepperidge Farms remembers 🤔
Lol Im pretty sure he was reffering to Bron as the “the superstar Riley told he’d trade before firing spo”
He couldn’t be LeGM in the Heat
No wonder it was his most successful stint
I heard Riley called a team meeting with Spo and basically said “He’s the coach. You don’t EVER come to my office and ask me to fire a coach.” I wish more GMs were like that.
How about you hear from Pat Riley himself ?
https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/14669732/miami-heat-president-pat-riley-says-lebron-james-never-asked-erik-spoelstra-fired
If LeBron James ever wanted Erik Spoelstra fired as coach while a member of the Heat, he never expressed that sentiment to team president Pat Riley. “Not from him to me, ever,” Riley said Thursday of James, who left the Heat two seasons ago in free agency to return to Cleveland. “So a lot of stuff is following him out the door. Whether it’s right or wrong, it’s just the nature of it. But as far as that goes, no, he never, ever walked in and said anything.”
If LeBron James ever wanted Erik Spoelstra fired as coach while a member of the Heat, he never expressed that sentiment to team president Pat Riley.
“Not from him to me, ever,” Riley said Thursday of James, who left the Heat two seasons ago in free agency to return to Cleveland. “So a lot of stuff is following him out the door. Whether it’s right or wrong, it’s just the nature of it. But as far as that goes, no, he never, ever walked in and said anything.”
On the other hand, Riley said the contrary two years later
“And I remember LeBron looking at me, and he said, ‘Don’t you ever get the itch?’ I said, ‘The itch for what?’ He said, ‘The itch to coach again?’ I said, ‘No, I don’t have the itch.’ He didn’t ask any more questions, and I didn’t offer any more answers. But I know what it meant, and I always go back and wonder about what he was thinking at that time. He walked out scratching his leg like it was itching.”
In 2011, I would go to the site firespo.com and sign the petition every day.
I was such a clown, bro.
Riley knows what it’s like to be a coach in that situation. I’m sure that plays a huge part in his support of spo in those early years.
Stan Van Gundy in shambles
Lebron shoulder-checked Spo like 9 games into the season
Take that for data…
Not gonna rook us
He’s referring to LeBron
Nah Jimmy Butler
Prolly both
Riley said Lebron never asked
Jimmy owes Spo his finals appearances.
Spo’s a beast.
I even think he’s a better coach than Steve Kerr. Post LeBron he’s done more with less talent.
Is this a hot take?
For real, I don’t think there are many out there who think otherwise
It should not be. Kerr is a Curry merchant, no bs
I’d 100% agree with that. I’d go so far to say as he’s *the* Curry merchant; while other coaches certainly would have had significant success taking over for Mark Jackson, I’m not at all convinced that any of them would have been able to match Kerr’s run even with the exact same roster and personnel.
Some people who overlook what Kerr had on his team yea. If your going by accolades and what not
Started as an entry-level AV guy, and worked his way to championship coach.
Spo is top 2 and he’s not 2
he already is one of the greatest ever
Would you put him top 5?
Pop, Phil, Riley, Red are probably locks for top 4.
And then you get into the convo with Larry Brown, Chuck Daly, Steve Kerr, Erik Spoelstra (and maybe some others I’m forgetting).
So short answer, yeah you can make the argument for top 5 I think. His resume with and without Lebron is impressive
I’m obviously biased but I just don’t know how Kerr is in the same convo with Spo. I’d love to see how Kerr evolves to life after Steph. Spo has done it 100 ways, Kerr hasn’t.
It’s not talked about enough that he rangled LeBron at the height of his ego and didn’t flinch once. Yes Riley’s backing helped, but Spo is a dude who has not taken shit and is a guy that players seem to enjoy playing for.
SPOACH the SPOAT for SPOTY
47% from 3 is actually pretty low for a Heat player not sure what the big deal about Norm is.
checks flair
Makes sense
Feels good knowing that my coach is better than yours.
Pat referring to jimmy?
I would assume this was earlier while Fizdale was an assistant there
LeBron
Fizdale will go down as one of the worst coaches of all time..
He was the better coach in 2020 finals when the lakers won v his heat. That was a close series. Just way more talent with AD/lebron and great roster construction.
I feel like he’s been the best coach in the league for years. Especially considering what he’s able to get out of the talent on his roster every year.
Even those years when Jimmy was there and they went far in the playoffs, they didn’t have a ton of depth around him and Bam. That or injuries would claim a lot of their best talent on top of that. Yet he always made it work. Getting the absolute max out of everybody available.
And LeBron tried to get him fired.
needs more rarespoe
Never really pay attention to basketball because I’m more of a football guy but I always hear about this head coach….what makes him so good? And could you put it in nfl terms?
I don’t watch football, so I can’t put it into football terms, but he gets the most out of literally everyone he coaches. You could put a team of ymca scrubs together and his coaching would take them further in the playoffs than teams with actual elite talent. Players would have career seasons with him and as soon as they leave, they fall off (kendrick Nunn, Gabe Vincent, dion waiters etc). He’s also the best coach in terms of on the fly adjustments and uses his timeouts very wisely.
Also important to state that ALL players that come under his wing don’t suddenly stop playing well when they leave the Heat. Derrick Jones Jr., Max Strus, and Duncan Robinson (this year) come to mind. He and his coaching staff are just really good at getting players to reach a higher “floor” in their career than might be possible in another organization, thus, extending their career.
One of the best. No other coach survived LeBron. Only Spo
Love the specific LA accent guys like Fizdale and Nipsey got
Knicks could have kept Thibs and traded the malcontents
remember LBJ initially wanted him fired
Hell. He can even date the cheerleaders.
I still remember when he was a rookie coach. Damn time flies
Gotta be jimmy right maybe bron 👀 lol but thats funny to think what superstars he said that to
Definitely, one of the best ever. 2nd best I’ve ever seen in the NBA after Pop.
He will beat Pops win record because of this. I say this as a Spurs fan and don’t really mind it. He’s a good coach.
18 seasons?! It’s already that long? Wow!
Wasn’t he also going to coach the Filipino national team but some politics ended that?
Spo is a basketball savant.
Who did he say that to? Jimmy or Bron?
never knew fizdale was from la