Former Miami Heat star Dwyane Wade shed light on the rumors that the team’s Big 3 of LeBron James, Chris Bosh, and himself wanted to fire Erik Spoelstra after the first year.
Speaking on Shannon Sharpe’s Club Shay Shay, “I don’t remember doing it. Not saying I didn’t, but I don’t remember doing that right,” Wade said.
“I knew Coach Spo at the time, I mean the one thing when LeBron [James] decides to retire, and talk about everything in his documentary, or whatever he decides to do about what we talked to do. Riley as a coach vs. Spo as a coach, and one thing I told him was, ‘You don’t want Riley to coach you. You don’t want Riley coaching this team bro.'”
“And even though Spo was not experienced, we need a coach that was experienced and can win championships, we’re going to help him, you don’t need the Godfather coming back.”
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Wade’s comments on the back of the well-documented fact that James wanted Spoelstra gone. Such was the former’s intent to get his head coach dumped, that he once shoulder-bumped him intentionally during the Heat’s 106-95 loss to the Dallas Mavericks in 2010.
In Spoelstra’s first season as coach, he led the Heat to the NBA playoffs, but the Heat were beaten by the Atlanta Hawks in the first round.
His second season with Miami was a lot more challenging. With the free agent acquisitions of James and Bosh in the 2010 summer, the team began with a 9-8 record. There were murmurs of the players reportedly being frustrated with Spoelstra, and his position was under pressure for a bit. However, the team bounced back and made the playoffs with a 58-24 record. The Heat made the 2011 NBA Finals, but lost 4-2.
Per Bleacher Report, the Heat minority owner Raanan Katz had a more insider account of the story saying, “With the Miami Heat, LeBron James—before and after his four seasons when his contract was up with the team—hinted in every way possible he wanted to dump head coach Erik Spoelstra.”
But it didn’t pan out the way James wanted, and now Spoelstra has been instrumental in the team’s success. This season, the Heat made the NBA Finals again, but went down 4-1 to the Denver Nuggets.
Pat Riley Shut Down LeBron James When He Went To The Heat President To Get Erik Spoelstra Fired
In what comes as a classic example of how Pat Riley ran things, the latter shut down James when he went to him to get Spoelstra fired.
“Look, there’s so many great Riley stories because Riley believes in culture,” Michael Lombardi said on Simmons’ podcast. “… This is a story – this isn’t a fact, but it’s fairly reliable – that players went in to complain about Spoelstra. And he went downstairs and told everybody downstairs, ‘I’ll be in there in 15 minutes.’ He made them all line up against the wall. And basically, all the mega-superstars that were there, he told every one of them, ‘You don’t ever come in my office and tell me to fire a coach. Your job is to play basketball.’ That’s culture!”
From the ‘big three’ of the LeBron-Wade-Bosh era to the 2020 bubble run with Jimmy Butler, Spoelstra kept the Heat competitive despite the tumult, and that shows the caliber of a great coach. And that perhaps is enough to justify Riley’s actions.
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