MIAMI — Erik Spoelstra on Tuesday became the longest-tenured coach/manager with his current team in U.S. professional sports. The way the Miami Heat leader got there, Spoelstra said, made it bittersweet.

With Mike Tomlin stepping aside following another playoff failure after 19 seasons as Pittsburgh Steelers coach, Spoelstra, in his 18th season, now has led his team longer than any coach in the NBA, NFL, NHL, Major League Baseball or Major League Soccer.  The next closest is the tie with the 13-season tenures of Kansas City Chiefs coach Andy Reid and Tampa Bay Lightning coach Jon Cooper.

“That really bummed me out,” Spoelstra said before Tuesday night’s victory over the Phoenix Suns of Tomlin being out. “We were talking about it in the weight room this afternoon. I was sad about that, and I was really bummed about the news about John Harbaugh, as well, because I’ve been fans of both of theirs for a long time.”

Harbaugh, now a candidate for the Miami Dolphins’ vacancy, was dismissed last week after his Baltimore Ravens failed to make the playoffs, having coached the Ravens for 18 seasons.

“My video room has sent me interview clips of Tomlin, Coach Tomlin, for years,” Spoelstra said. “I just love everything he’s about. He’s a coach’s coach, super motivational in how he articulates his thoughts.

“And Coach Harbaugh, I don’t know him, but I feel like I do . . . And then I almost got involved with a coaching academy concept with him a couple years back. It just didn’t work out with the timing.”

Spoelstra then continued on the theme.

“So I’ve been a fan of both of them,” he said. “It does make me sad, because they’re titans of the game, and I just always thought that they would be there forever.

“Because you can rebuild. You can reload.”

Which he has in Miami.

Which most haven’t gotten the opportunity to do elsewhere.

“There’s obviously major turnover in sports,” Spoelstra said, “but you want to have good leadership. You want to have proven, high-character leadership. It’s a sad day.

“And we’ll see if they can find leaders with somebody else that can be as consistent as they’ve been for multiple decades. But that’s a bummer, and I wish I wasn’t the longest tenure.”

Spoelstra, whose team next hosts the Boston Celtics on Thursday night, explained his consternation over the honor of longest tenured with a single team.

“Some people could look at that as a badge of honor,” he said. “I look at that as really a disappointment to this profession, that there’s not more coaches that are given an opportunity to work through things.

“For sure, my greatest opportunities of growth have been from disappointing seasons, where we really went to work during the offseason to find ways to get better.”

Spoelstra has endured with a front office that has been in place for decades, from Heat President Pat Riley to General Manager Andy Elisburg to Assistant General Manager Adam Simon, all while under the ownership governance of Micky Arison.

“You have to have ownership and management,” Spoelstra said, “that are willing to go through the trials and not just succumb to, ‘Oh, it’s stale, or, ‘Time for a change,’ things of that nature.

“I think if you took a case study on all the leagues, when it’s a time for a change, when they make the changes over and over and over, if it actually benefited the organization or not.

“I would guess not.”

Longest tenured coaches

(With same team)

NBA: Erik Spoelstra (Miami Heat), 2008; Steve Kerr (Golden State Warriors), 2014; Billy Donovan (Chicago Bulls), 2020; Tyronn Lue (LA Clippers), 2020; Mark Daigneault (Oklahoma City Thunder), 2020.

NFL:  Andy Reid (Kansas City Chiefs), 2013; Sean McDermott (Buffalo Bills), 2017; Sean McVay  (Los Angeles Rams), 2017; Kyle Shanahan (San Francisco 49ers), 2017; Matt LaFleur (Green Bay Packers), Zac Taylor (Cincinnati Bengals) 2019.

NHL: Jon Cooper (Tampa Bay Lightning), 2013; Jared Bednar (Colorado Avalanche), 2016;  Rod Brind’Amour (Carolina Hurricanes), 2018;  Andre Tourigny (Utah Mammoth),  2021;  Martin St. Louis (Montreal Canadiens), 2022.

MLB: Kevin Cash (Tampa Bay Rays), 2014; Dave Roberts (Los Angeles Dodgers), 2015; Torey Lovullo (Arizona Diamondbacks), 2016; Aaron Boone (New York Yankees), 2017; Mark Kotsay (Athletics), 2021

MLS:  Brian Schmetzer (Seattle Sounders), 2016; Óscar Pareja (Orlando City SC), 2019; Greg Vanney (LA Galaxy), 2021; Pablo Mastroeni (Real Salt Lake), 2021; Pat Noonan (FC Cincinnati), 2021.