What Teams Have Eric Spoelstra Coached?

Erik Spoelstra, fondly known as Coach Spo, is an American professional basketball coach for the Miami Heat of the NBA. With his ‘Heat culture and inculcating the underdog mentality, Spoelstra is widely regarded as one of the best coaches in the NBA and one of the greatest coaches of this generation.

Spoelstra is the only coach of Filipino origin to win a championship in the four major sports leagues of the United States. Spoelstra’s father was a former NBA executive for the Portland Trail Blazers, Buffalo Braves, Denver Nuggets, and the New Jersey Nets, and his grandfather Watson Spoelstra is a long-time sports writer for The Detroit News. So, Spoelstra was around basketball a lot in his childhood and naturally, he got drawn towards it as he got older.

After playing high school basketball in Oregon, Spoelstra received multiple scholarship offers but chose to play for the University of Oregon, in his hometown. Spoelstra had a stellar career in college, being named the West Coast Conference Freshman of the Year. He was the starting point guard for the Oregon Pilots for 4 years and averaged 9.2 points and 4.4 assists.

He is a member of the school’s 1000-point club. Spoelstra declared for the 1992 draft but went undrafted. After this, Spoelstra contemplated going to the Philippines to play in the leagues over there before he received an opportunity from Germany in 1993 to play in the basketball division's second league as a player-assistant coach. He took up this job for two years before receiving an offer from the Miami Heat as a video coordinator.

Eric Spoelstra Teams Coached

Spoelstra was initially hired as a video coordinator. His job was not initially guaranteed but after the head coach change, Pat Riley, the new head coach, was not contractually allowed to bring a new video guy to the team. So, Spoelstra stuck with the team and as time went on became more acquainted with the team and coaching staff over there.

In 2 years, Spoelstra was promoted as the video coordinator/assistant coach. As an assistant coach, he was credited with improving Heat’s star guard Dwyane Wade’s jump shot and balance after returning from the 2004 Olympics. In the 2006 NBA season, Spoelstra won his first NBA championship as an assistant to Stan Van Gundy.

In 2008, Pat Riley decided to step down as the head coach of the team and named Erik Spoelstra as his hand-picked successor. This led to Spoelstra becoming the first Asian American head coach in the NBA. He led the Heat to the playoffs in his first two seasons over there, but they were met with disappointing first-round exits. In the 2010 offseason, the Miami Heat struck gold as they landed top free-agent LeBron James and NBA star Chris Bosh to their roster. This increased their chances of winning an NBA championship significantly.

Things didn’t go as per plan their first season as the Miami Heat were upset in the NBA Finals by the underdog Dallas Mavericks. After that season, Spoelstra figured something out and the offense ran primarily through LeBron James instead of sharing the responsibility with the aging Dwyane Wade. This worked wonders as the Heat won back-to-back championships in the 2012 and 2013 seasons. After LeBron James left the Heat in 2014 and Dwayne Wade also slowed down, nobody expected the Heat to make any major noise. But, after landing free-agent Jimmy Butler in the 2019 offseason, the Heat were right back in the mix of things.

From being the overwhelming favorites when they had LeBron James, they went to the pesky underdogs that no one wanted to face. And it was here that Spoelstra truly showcased his complete abilities as a coach. With a rag-tag bunch of undrafted players and players that were mostly given up by most of the teams in the NBA, Spoelstra managed to put all the misfitting pieces together and pulled out two NBA Finals appearances from rosters that, to be honest, had no business of being in the Finals. Spoelstra is still the coach of the Miami Heat and looks to prove the naysayers wrong and lead the Heat to yet another deep playoff run.