Is Miami Heat Coach Erik Spoelstra Winning Me Over?
As my favorite NBA team The Miami Heat got off to a blistering fast 8-1 start there wasn’t much bad I could say about their head coach Erik Spoelstra. He instituted a fast break offense where the Heat could take advantage of their athleticism. He moved LeBron James into the post where he could back down or shoot over smaller opponents while still being able to track down his teammates with his precision passing. And in close games Spoelstra even drew up smart plays that provided the winning baskets in back to back games.
But then came a lull. The Heat went out west and lost three games in a row to inferior opponents. A friend mocked me that he couldn’t believe I hadn’t been advertising my Spo’s Gotta Go mantra, but this losing streak wasn’t really the coach’s fault. Sure I would have liked him to play James Jones in one of those games as Jones has been on fire from three point range, and I’ll take it as a coincidence that the Heat did not have a single practice all season until the day preceding their losing streak (where I’ll assume Spoelstra didn’t infuse them with a loser mentality). But if the Heat would have made a couple more free throws they still would have won two of the three games, and you can’t blame the coach for that. And now Miami has trounced the Lakers and Spurs in back to back home games.
So have I at long last grown comfortable with the idea that Spoelstra is the coach of the Miami Heat?
No. No. No. A thousand times no.
This is a special team and even if Spoelstra is a basketball savant (which I’ll assume he is because other than incriminating photographs he has of his employers I can’t imagine how else he has kept his job) I can’t accept a guy who looks more at ease in a cubicle, being at the reins of this pony. If for no other reason than entertainment purposes I want a coach with personality. Someone who will throw a chair at a referee for a bad call. A coach who would occasionally be quoted saying something insightful or controversial that might move the players and maybe even the fan base.
A coach to me should be motivational, inspirational, and oozing of charisma. A perfect basketball coach is in essence Pat Riley, a snake oil salesman, who could con a coward to dive into a pit of snakes for a loose ball. Riley was such a force of nature that he captured the imagination of Chinatown screenwriter Robert Towne who wrote a movie for Riley to star in. Riley was busy coaching the Lakers and so Towne went with his second choice, Kurt Russell, for the movie Tequila Sunrise. Meanwhile the only role I could see written especially for Spoelstra is to play one of Harry Potter’s wizard friends.
Here’s an idea. Why don’t we hire an actor to be coach of the Heat? If it can happen in politics why not sports? Riley can write the dialogue. We can slide Spoelstra over to the assistant coaching position where his middle management demeanor is more fitting. Then we can get a firebrand as coach. My first pick is Kyle Chandler, the guy who played Coach Taylor in the TV show Friday Night Lights. If his compassionate toughness could get a band of misfits to overachieve and win the state title, than I’m sure Coach Taylor could get LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, Chris Bosh, Norris Cole, and the rest of the Miami Heat gang to fulfill their destiny and win the NBA championship.
I still can’t help but think Pat Riley is going to take the job over at some point.
All I can say about this is…becareful what you wish for, you just might get it. After 10 years it had become apparent that Tommy Bowden could do nothing with Clemson’s football team back in 2008, when they continued to grossly underachieve in a conference they should have been excelling in. Finally, the tipping point came when Clemson lost to a more than mediocre Wake Forest team by of score of 13-10, just ridiculous for an offense that had put up tons of points the year before. Suddenly they couldn’t score against anyone. So for failure to be on the same page as the rest of Clemson and their fan base Bowden was asked “politely” to “resign.”
Prior to this I had posted to a Clemson Football blog on facebook that it was more than time for Bowden to go, completely pissing off every Clemson fan I could along the way until I was finally proven right by the Wake game. In that final message before the next coach came in I remember saying that Clemson needs a good ol’ boy coach, to bring back the days of Danny Ford and the powerhouse football teams Clemson had in the 80′s. We needed someone with passion, fire, charisma, determination, someone that would make the team perform to their utmost ability.
And we got Dabo Swinney. Need I say more. Now, I’ll admit, the man has fire, passion, charisma, and determination to make Clemson the best football team it can be…but it’s ALL about him now. I’m frankly tired of the “ALL IN” BS, and really long for Clemson to play horribly so we can get rid of him and get a real coach. Now, yes, Clemson football has been the best it’s been in 20 years going to two ACC title games and winning one ACC championship, but there’s just something about it that drives me nuts.
Maybe it was Dabo’s unwillingness to give Tajh Boyd a chance in 2010 as the quarterback because God’s gift to Clemson football Kyle Parker just had to play again? That didn’t work out too well. Maybe it was the fact that the only reason the 2009 team reached the ACC title was thanks to CJ Spiller and a very weak ACC Atlantic division? Maybe it was the fact Clemson’s defense has been suspect since Kevin Steele first arrived in 2009, culminating in the horrific, downright embarrassing massacre Clemson endured in the Orange Bowl this year?
I just know, I’m not “ALL IN” with Dabo. But, I got what I wished for. So just be careful.