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If awards were handed out based on impact instead of win totals, ESPN propaganda, or the entire season, not just the regular season, Miami Heat head coach Erik Spoelstra would already own multiple Coach of the Year trophies. Unfortunately, somehow, he has never won the award.
That makes the Heat’s early-season success already have us ready to fire up the “Spo-ach of the Year” marketing campaign to make good on an injustice nearly three decades in the making.
While the Miami Heat’s 11–6 record may not be overly impressive on its face, it’s in the results and the adversity they’ve overcome that make this stretch of work some of Coach Spo’s finest.
Here are the five reasons this should — finally — be the year the voters get it right.
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No-Ego Offense
The Heat were supposed to be bad this year. Outside of the addition of Norman Powell, there wasn’t much reason for optimism.
Plot twist: It’s so awesome. The most awesome, even. Of literally any team in the NBA. As of this past weekend, the Heat have the NBA’s top offense, averaging more than 124 points per game. That’s a 14-point jump from last season. Such a leap does not occur in the NBA without a complete philosophical overhaul.
And a complete philosophical overhaul is precisely what Spoelstra delivered. He moved the team away from the slow, grind-it-out style of past seasons and implemented a new system built on pace, spacing, tempo, and early offense. And he would be the first to tell you almost none of it is his doing, and that instead, it’s him putting aside his ego to try something new.
The foundation came through collaboration with Noah LaRoche, borrowing ideas from a past Memphis Grizzlies’ interesting-at-first, but ultimately failed experiment.
Spo embraced it. The result is the fastest, freest version of Miami basketball we have seen since the LeBron era.
This team was not supposed to score like this. But Spoelstra reinvented them — in real time.
Dependable — Even Amid Personal Tragedy
Miami has been known to utilize a “Burn the Boats” mantra in past seasons to symbolize the fact that there was no going back, but this season, it was a house that burned, and it was much more than a rallying cry.
Earlier this month, Spoelstra’s home burned to the ground in a fire. Total devastation. A nightmare, complete with 30-foot Halloween decorations littering the property as the structure burned to the foundation.
It was the type of life event that would pull most people away from work for weeks, maybe months.
Spo missed zero games. Not one. He was back on the bench the next night.
That’s not an exception. There is something unbreakable about him. Something that sets a tone for everyone around him. And moving forward, it will be tough for any player on the Heat roster to make excuses for their performance.
The Most Complete Coach in the NBA
Nobody makes Michelin-star chicken salad out of chicken hot dogs better than Coach Spoelstra, be it a tossed-aside veteran player who needs “Heat Culture” in his life or a young buck light on experience but filled with potential.
The Heat have succeeded this season on the backs of Powell and Jaime Jaquez. Amid the Andrew Wiggins trade talk that persisted throughout the offseason, they found a way to remain functional. The juggling act has continued into the season.
Spoelstra got Powell to buy in after a rough start. He revived Wiggins after two years of uncertainty. And he managed to give rookie Kel’el Ware serious developmental attention without sacrificing victories. Spo’s seasons always come with roster volatility, but somehow the vibes never crack.
Miami does not rebuild. The team reloads inside the season, inside the rotation, inside the margins. No coach in the league manages chaos like Spo.
Major Injuries, Minor Inconvenience
Removing two All-Star-caliber starters from any team in the NBA for a prolonged period of time is a recipe for a 6–11 stretch, not an 11–6 run. Yet somehow Miami has pulled off the latter.
The Heat have played most of the year without Bam Adebayo. They have played all of it without Tyler Herro. These are not fringe role players. These are core pieces that define the franchise’s identity.
Before the season, losing both would have sounded like a recipe for disaster. But Spo reshuffled the rotation and empowered role players to step outside their comfort zones.
And Miami has become one of the best stories in the league.
This, folks, is coaching at its highest level.
Terry Rozier Storyline Is a Nonfactor
Terry Rozier’s indictment amid a federal betting investigation is one of the biggest scandals to hit the NBA in years. Miami had nothing to do with it, but the spotlight immediately landed on the Heat, as Rozier, one of the highest-paid players on the Heat’s roster, became unavailable overnight.
Most teams would treat that as a season-changing distraction. But if you didn’t know any better, you wouldn’t have guessed it happened to Miami.
Spo did not blink. He never used it as an excuse. Never referenced it. Never allowed the locker room to fracture over it.
Miami played as if nothing had happened.
Leadership means navigating adversity and coming out on top. It can be argued that no team in the NBA has been dealt a worse hand in the first 20 games of the season than Miami, yet they’re the story of the NBA, first place in their division, and near the top of the Eastern Conference.
And that, folks, is why Erik Spoelstra deserves Coach of the Year.
