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Klay Thompson joins a cast of new Heat players who have Erik Spoelstra excited.<\/p>\n
MIAMI \u2014 Klay Thompson didn\u2019t sleep particularly well before his first training camp practice with the Miami Heat.<\/p>\n
It wasn\u2019t nerves, wasn\u2019t a bad hotel room, wasn\u2019t anything like that.<\/p>\n
The problem was Erik Spoelstra. And it was a good problem to have.<\/p>\n
The Miami coach \u2014 entering his 19th season with the Heat, by far the longest current tenure of any coach in the NBA \u2014 always addresses his team on the night before the start of camp. And what Spoelstra said in this season\u2019s kickoff speech had Thompson so fired up that getting rest proved difficult, if not impossible.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe cares,\u201d Thompson said. \u201cAnd it\u2019s good to be around a head coach who doesn\u2019t mind to kind of get into you. He respects your work, but he also wants to get the most out of you. And he doesn\u2019t believe in \u2018you\u2019re past your prime\u2019 or \u2018your best years are behind you.\u2019 He believes that you can still be effective at any stage you want \u2014 as long as you\u2019re willing to work.\u201d<\/p>\n
That part, the commitment to the work, never changes. But a run to the NBA Finals in 2023 was followed up by first-round exits in 2024 and 2025. And last season, when Miami wildly changed its offense but didn\u2019t have anywhere near enough chemistry, the playoffs were missed entirely.<\/p>\n
So, change did happen. Norman Powell, Tyler Herro, Jaime Jaquez Jr. and Kel\u2019el Ware \u2014 four of last season\u2019s top seven overall scorers for Miami \u2014 are gone, with Giannis Antetokounmpo, Tim Hardaway Jr., Bobby Portis and Thompson in their place. And based on early returns, it\u2019s easy to see why Spoelstra is firing people up when he talks about this season.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe all know what we\u2019re here for,\u201d Spoelstra said. \u201cEverybody understands what they\u2019re signing up for. There\u2019s not any confusion about the agenda. There\u2019s more an excitement about trying to commit to doing something collectively that\u2019s really hard to do and hopefully ends in something so special at the end of the year.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou want to have that feeling as a coaching staff and as a front office, you also want the players to have the same type of feeling,\u201d he added. \u201cAnd it\u2019s early right now, but it just feels like those things are aligned.\u201d<\/p>\n
Spoelstra\u2019s story is well-known. He grew up in Oregon and idolized Jack Ramsay among others, played college basketball, was in the game when Loyola Marymount star Hank Gathers tragically died, got hired in the Heat video room before team president Pat Riley even came to Miami to coach, eventually became an assistant under Riley and then was the hand-picked successor to become head coach when Riley retired in 2008. In 2027, he\u2019ll coach the U.S. team at the Basketball World Cup and in 2028 he\u2019ll lead the American men into the Los Angeles Olympics.<\/p>\n
He\u2019ll be in the Hall of Fame one day and it\u2019s easy to see why. In 18 seasons under Spoelstra, the Heat have finished below the .500 mark only three times. He\u2019s taken six teams to the NBA Finals, the first four of those when LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh formed a Big Three in Miami.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can guarantee you that Erik Spoelstra is going to be motivated going into this year,\u201d Bosh said. \u201cHe\u2019s going to have a plan. They\u2019re going to score a lot of points. And I think Giannis will love playing that way.\u201d<\/p>\n
With Antetokounmpo now playing alongside Bam Adebayo, longtime NBA coach and Basketball Hall of Famer Doc Rivers \u2014 who coached Antetokounmpo in Milwaukee \u2014 sees parallels between the James-Wade-Bosh era of Heat basketball and what\u2019s possible in this one.<\/p>\n
\u201cI look at Miami and I look at Spo and Bam and Giannis, I mean, that\u2019s a hell of a Big Three,\u201d Rivers said. \u201cAnybody can go get the stars. The key \u2014 great organizations know this, and Miami is one of those \u2014 is figuring out how to build around them when your resources are lacking. Every person you sign has to be the right person. And if I was going to pick anybody to do that, Pat Riley and Spo would be at the top of the list.\u201d<\/p>\n
Most decisions have to be right as well, and the one with the offense that Spoelstra made a year ago might pay huge dividends now. Miami started playing very fast, shooting earlier in the shot clock, trying to get the ball over halfcourt in a couple seconds, putting constant pressure on defenses.<\/p>\n
It seems tailor-made to fit Antetokounmpo\u2019s game.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you have a coach like Erik Spoelstra, it makes the job much easier,\u201d Antetokounmpo said. \u201cYou know that you\u2019re going to be in the right places and you\u2019re going to be successful when you play.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Eastern Conference will be loaded this season, playoff spots will be difficult to grab and Miami \u2014 even after some preseason glimmers of great \u2014 can\u2019t say with any certainty yet about how the season will go.<\/p>\n
But Spoelstra is energized. His team is noticing. Excitement seems high, and that tends to mean very good things are coming in Miami.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t want to reinvent guys. We just want to add to (them),\u201d Spoelstra said. \u201cAnd hopefully we can make our guys better when they come into this building, but also just really accentuate what they already do and maximize that and put it all together where everybody\u2019s maximizing each other\u2019s strengths. The possibilities for us are exciting.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Klay Thompson joins a cast of new Heat players who have Erik Spoelstra excited. MIAMI \u2014 Klay Thompson…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":644494,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[85,46,105],"class_list":["post-644493","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/644493","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=644493"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/644493\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/644494"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=644493"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=644493"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=644493"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}