Erik Spoelstra, the head coach of the Miami Heat, has done it again.
He has coached a team full of scrappers and overachievers to the NBA Finals after the team claimed an improbable 103-84 win in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference Finals on the road against the Boston Celtics.
This will be Spoelstra’s sixth trip to the Finals, and he is universally regarded as one of the NBA’s best coaches, if not its best coach.
He is also one of the league’s more improbable success stories.
Unlike most other coaches, he started out as a video coordinator for the Heat back in the 1990s.
Erik Spoelstra, 1995: Video coordinator for the Miami Heat
Erik Spoelstra, 2023: Has coached the Miami Heat to six NBA Finals in 13 seasons pic.twitter.com/HB5kbpdJsY
— Front Office Sports (@FOS) May 30, 2023
Most coaches are former players themselves, which gives them an advantage as a coach, as it allows them to relate to their players and understand on a visceral level the different things they have to deal with in their NBA journeys.
Spoelstra played college ball at the University of Portland, but he wasn’t good enough to make it to the NBA, so he instead spent two years as a player-coach for a pro team in Germany.
Once he became Miami’s video coordinator, he started to rise through the ranks, which led to him becoming an assistant coach and scout a few years later.
When Pat Riley resigned as head coach in 2008, he chose Spoelstra as his successor.
Spoelstra’s first two years at the helm of the Heat were rocky, but then LeBron James and Chris Bosh came to town, and he guided them to four straight Finals appearances and back-to-back NBA championships.
Starting this week, he will have the opportunity to join a select group of coaches who have won three world titles when his team takes on the Denver Nuggets.
NEXT: Jimmy Butler Will Seek To Take Over An NBA Lead In The Finals
