Screenshot via YouTube/Miami HEAT
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Miami Heat head coach Erik Spoelstra said what all Miamians are thinking. He wants the New Yorkers who fled to Miami during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic to please go home.
Following the first day of training camp at Florida Atlantic University on Tuesday, Spoelstra fielded questions from reporters, and one question, apparently from a New York native, got him heated.
“Erik, maybe there are not a lot of big national expectations from this team…” the unidentified reporter began.
Spoesltra quickly interrupted, “I know. Why are you here? Do you live down here or something? Go back to New York. I’m tired of all the New Yorkers moving down here. I’m dead serious.” He then shook his head.
Heat fans on the r/heat subreddit stood ten toes down behind their coach.
“You fucken tell em Spo,” one comment reads.
“He’s right,” another added. “And then they talk shit on our teams, calling us poverty, yet they move to Florida in droves to escape their own shitty climate.”
One user asked, “Can he run for office yet?” while another pointed out, “Ok this man has risen to a real golden god.”
Others noted that Spoelstra is a transplant himself. He was born in Illinois and lived in Buffalo, New York, before spending the majority of his childhood in Portland, Oregon.
“‘Stop moving down here, go back to where you came from’ – people who came from somewhere else,” a user wrote.
However, fans have crowned their coach “a true Floridian.” They said he is an official Miamian.
New Yorkers have flocked to South Florida since the onset of the pandemic, citing the more friendly business environment, fewer COVID-19 restrictions, lower cost of living, and better weather. The Citizens Budget Commission, a nonpartisan and nonprofit civic think tank and watchdog, recently released a report revealing that 29,000 New Yorkers with combined annual incomes of $9.2 billion moved to Miami-Dade and Palm Beach Counties between 2018 and 2022. A net of 12,000 New Yorkers moved to Broward County during that same period. The arrival of wealthy New Yorkers has forced Miamians out amid the rising housing costs.
The Heat will open the 2025-26 regular season in Orlando against the Magic on October 22. The team is looking to bounce back after a disappointing, drama-filled losing season. Unfortunately, the Heat will be without Tyler Herro to begin the season after he underwent left foot surgery last month.
