Original article can be found at:
http://bleacherreport.com/articles/476874-miami-heat-will-erik-spoelstra-win-nba-coach-of-the-year-pat-rileys-trust
Who is Erik Spoelstra?
He is the guy with both the easiest and the hardest job in the NBA.
His job is to push the Miami Heat to an NBA title this season, the year after that one, and the next one for good measure in order to establish job security.
Pat Riley runs the Heat franchise and has made it very clear that, as team president, he will always do what is best for the team.
So far, Riley has decided to go with Spoelstra much in the same way that he kept Stan Van Gundy in charge when Shaq strolled into town.
We all remember how that chapter ended.
Van Gundy failed to win a title in his first year and less than a third of the way into his second season with a title contender, he was axed and replaced by the Hall of Fame coach who presided over him.
Miami went on to win its only NBA title that season, before their championship window closed as Dwyane Wade dealt with multiple injuries and Shaquille O'Neal asked to be dealt after realizing he played with Chris Quinn and Ricky Davis.
An embarrassing 15-win season resulted and Riley stepped down again, giving Erik Spoelstra the job.
In two seasons, the former Heat video coordinator has produced mixed reviews.
He has been praised for getting his players to hustle, and accused of being unimaginative on offense. He is respected for guiding them to the playoffs, and blamed for their disappointing first round exits. He is complemented for being a player's coach, unlike Riley, while also viewed as a Riley puppet.
Last year, the 39-year-old coach kept the Heat competitive against the best, but buzzer beaters by Kobe Bryant, Rajon Rondo, and Paul Pierce got him strategically second guessed over and over.
Coach Spo's rotation was also a topic of debate. Many teams licked their chops waiting to pounce on Miami's offensively challenged second unit. Dwyane Wade was routinely forced into hero mode against the most modest of opponents.
The most overly scrutinized part of his rotation was his decision to start Michael Beasley and close the games with Udonis Haslem. Miami's second leading scorer was routinely left on the bench with the game in the balance, because the coach viewed him as erratic offensively and not fundamentally sound on defense.
This unavoidable fiasco divided the fan base as both players were incapable of playing out of position.
Wade's preference was for Haslem to be on the court with him with the games on the line. In many cases, he was right, as UD earned the nickname Captain Clutch with his late game heroics. Yet on other nights, when coach was forced to play Beasley, his brilliance rescued the team from defeat.
Like the day that Beasley dunked home a game-winning slam off of a Wade airball before the buzzer.
In retrospect, Coach Spoelstra got more right than he got wrong, because his methods resulted in his receiving Coach of the Month honors in March as the Heat went 12-3 and torpedoed their way all the way up to a number five seed in the East and a first round date with the Boston Celtics.
On second thought, that was his worst decision ever.
The Miami Heat controlled their destiny with a 46-35 record heading into the final game against the 12-69 New Jersey Nets. A win would earn them the fifth spot against Boston, while a loss would have secured a rematch with the Atlanta Hawks, who Miami battled to seven games just the year before.
Coach Spoelstra refused to tank the game suggesting he did not want to upset the basketball gods.
Miami was then steam rolled by the eventual Eastern Conference champion.
At the time I argued that the Boston Celtics were to be more feared than any mythical "basketball gods" that may or may not exist.
And the LeBron James and Chris Bosh took their talents to South Beach..
The coach that I have mocked for preaching about "The Energy Bus", a best selling book about positive psychology, now has me in the driver's seat of his Coach of the Year campaign.
In his first day of training camp, he split up his superstars and had them lead four man teams in defensive battles where one point was assigned per defensive stop.
People are going to continue to be divided on Coach Spoelstra, but count me amongst the believers.
I know it sounds really simplistic, arrogant, and even ignorant when he says that the offense will take care of itself, but he has a point.
It will be very hard for anybody to hold Miami under 100 points.
The only way to dethrone both the Lakers and Celtics is to outperform them on the defensive end and Coach Spoelstra has his team pushing for championship level intensity already. His team seems energized and motivated to land the top seed throughout the playoffs and maybe even challenge for the all-time record of 72 wins, set by the 1995-96 Chicago Bulls.
The defensive tenacity that Spoelstra instilled into last season's was nothing short of impressive.
A team that was admittedly not very high on talent was second in the NBA in points against, second in opponent field goal percentage, fourth in opponent three point percentage and even out rebounded their opposition in spite of being undersized.
Imagine superstars like Chris Bosh and LeBron James buying into the system.
Downright scary.
That is what makes him the overwhelming Coach of the Year favorite.
However, his job security will fall 100 percent on his ability to deliver a championship.
Statistical analysis has Miami at around 35 percent odds of taking home the trophy, but I suspect Pat Riley expects to win now. If Stan Van Gundy was given the axe for failing to deliver a title with Shaq and Dwyane, imagine the amount of pressure that Spoelstra feels with this group.
Those odds point to a 65 percent chance that Erik Spoelstra will fail to bring home the title.
Boston and Los Angeles have intimidating, playoff tested rosters coupled with amazing coaches. Doc Rivers or Phil Jackson could easily outfox Spoelstra in the playoffs, but a playoff exit to any other opponent would be the ultimate kiss of death.
Yes, Erik Spoelstra may win a regular season award, but he has higher odds of getting canned.
In fact, Pat Riley may already be itching for the job.
Chris Tiedje
September 27, 2010 at 2:37 pm
Sure. I can turn it off if you don’t mind 100 posts an hour about viagra.
Sorry guys. We lasted almost a year without having to use it, but in the last week with major hacker attacks on Twitter and Facebook the SPAM bots finally found our WordPress blogs. Unfortunately, it is a necessary evil.
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I also agree that I would rather get rid of captcha and see how bad it gets with the viagra ads. I mean, if we could deal with trolls, I’m sure we can handle a few of those ads.
In any case, the nature of posting of this board is compromised by having to write “distating cisoved”.
Other votes against or for captcha by the remaining few?
Not gonna happen. If the SPAM gets through, then so do the trolls. Not on my watch.
The viagra ads probably have better basketball points than one poster on here. But, I can use the ignore button for them just like I do for him.
Go Hawks!
how does that block button work? i don’t see it anywhere and would like to know how to enable it.
How do you get an ignore button?
Also, I respectfully will not post here very much under your watch. You have killed the blog.
Ohshz’s suspension is baffling too… any chance he comes back under your watch?
Thanks for getting rid of the trolling, but you are now bullying the board and killing its soul.
The ignore featue is like the force… it is inside each one of you… you just need to use it.
Chris: I won’t belabor this anymore (although if other people do, that would be great). I think you are exaggerating the spam threat and I also think you are mistaken about the effectiveness of the reCAPTCHAs on reducing trolls.
i guess that was witty JB but it seems to me there is an actual ignore button that some of us can’t see or use. where is it?
I’ve emailed Ohshz about his actions, that is if he used a legit email in his comments.
Sorry to hear we won’t be seeing you much. You’ll be missed.
And guys, JB is messing with you.
damn, i thought i saw someone else post something about an ignore button but it was probably just JB….guess I was duped.
The recaptcha thing I think is mostly just turning people off of the blog. I’ve seen plenty of troll problems on here but I’ve never noticed a spam problem. And I have to agree with Cyrus. While I still like coming on here and seeing what everyone is saying, this blog has lost its personality and has become kind of dull. And I’m pretty sure that’s not just because it’s the off season…..there’s plenty to talk about with the Miami Heat.
Thanks for that update. What is the next step for him to take? He said he did not receive an e-mail. I don’t think you sincerely will miss anybody and that is ok, you have a job to do.
But what is that job? Is it for the Sun-Sentinel to no longer have the best Heat blog on the internet. Ira has put in a lot of work to create this following. Does he not like having hundreds of comments for every blog he posts?
No steps to take. All he has to do is comment.
Ira’s numbers have never been better. Thanks for asking.
there is absolutely no way that is true
Chris your implying that you own the blog… why not just moderate but be less cocky.. thank you.
Sorry. It is mostly a thankless job.
It should be a thankless job and it should also be a job where you do what is best for your loyal readers.
If they are begging you to take captcha off because they hate it, you should not say you will miss us. Can you talk to Ira about the situation? I think he should really be making the call at this point.
You assume Ira doesn’t know. This is his blog, not mine. You’re fooling yourself if you think he doesn’t know every single thing that happens here.
I truly am sorry about the recaptcha. I promise you that you don’t want the floodgates of SPAM opened.
maybe if he hadn’t previously stated that he doesn’t pay attention to the comments on his blog, we could believe that. i want to believe he knows what is going on here, but that’s a tough sale. i can’t even make out a lot of the recaptcha stuff…..it’s not just preventing spam, it’s preventing posters from wanting to deal with this.
Thank you Chris for explaining all of that. I am glad to know that Ira knows what is going on. Like dsky said, our perception is that he may not be paying attention to the way captcha has turned off his loyal readers.
What numbers are you referring to? I’m sure people read his blog, but there is no way the numbers are better than ever when it comes to activity on this blog… it takes twice as much effort to post and there are fewer people to interact with.
Basically, does Ira not care about his loyal following, because his numbers are better than ever?
The ignore feature works quite well. The hot key is the “pgdn” key. I use it all the time.
adam youghar
I’m just glad we don’t have to read through the usual spam and racist remarks by you know who today.
agreed….i really don’t know how he wasn’t booted after comparing having a favorite team you root for to nazi germany….that still baffles me when i think about it.
My prediction for the top 8 records in the East.
1. Miami
2. Orlando
3. Milwaukee
4. Boston
5. Atlanta
6. Chicago
7. New York
8. Charlotte
CyrusTheVirus says:
September 27, 2010 at 1:46 pm
When will Ohshz’s suspension come to an end? It seems he has already served his time…
BTW, training camp fodder added in Anthony Mason Jr. and Mickell Gladness. Gladness is the all-time leader in NCAA shotblocks – I guess he replaces what Varnado would have brought to training camp.
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FREE OHSHZ!!!!!!!!!!!!!
JB you have gotten maybe everybody with the “ignore button” including me. Mad props my man. As for the whole recaptcha squabble, cant we all get passed this? I personally don’t want you guys to leave and I’m sure that’s not what Chris wants. Onto basketball, loved the quotes from Wade especially :
Wade, on not having to be the sole leader: “I’m not the loudest guy. It allows me to stay within my personality and not go outside my box.”
Does that sound like the words of a Diva?
http://www.gettyimages.com/Search/Search.aspx?contractUrl=2&language=en-US&family=editorial&assetType=image&p=miami%20heat
pics starting to come out
OK. I’m game for an experiment. Seems like you guys are tired of me, so I’ll gracefully make my exit. I’ll turn off the recaptcha. I’ll check back in a while to see how you’re all doing.
Thank you. We will let you know how it goes down. Have a great day. We really appreciate you doing that.