With the agreement to extend his contract, Erik Spoelstra, the longest-tenured coach in Miami Heat history, will continue to add to his record for years to come.
A person with knowledge of the agreement who spoke to The Associated Press on Tuesday under the condition of anonymity because the terms were not made public said that Spoelstra signed an eight-year extension worth about $120 million, making it the largest contract in NBA history in terms of total value for a coach.
Spoelstra is in his 29th season with the team overall and his 16th as head coach of Miami. Beginning in the video room, he worked his way up to become a scout, an assistant coach, and in April 2008, Pat Riley personally selected him to be the head coach.
When Spoelstra got to Miami, he was 24 years old. At 53 years old, he has won three NBA championships, two of which he earned while serving as Miami’s head coach. Including this past season, he has led the Heat to six NBA Finals appearances.
With 28 seasons as the head coach of the San Antonio Spurs, Gregg Popovich, holds the record for the second-longest tenure in the league with Spoelstra. Only three coaches have won more games with one team than Spoelstra has with the Heat: Popovich with the Spurs, Jerry Sloan with Utah, and Red Auerbach with Boston. Spoelstra’s 725 regular-season victories rank 19th in NBA history.
In this Olympic cycle, Spoelstra is also an assistant coach for USA Basketball, and this summer in Paris, he will be a member of head coach Steve Kerr’s staff. Among the front-runners to lead the Olympic squad in the upcoming cycle, which will conclude at the Los Angeles Games in 2028, is most likely Spoelstra.
Before the current season started, Spoelstra declared, “We’re about the sweat and the grind.” “The topic is when no one is around. “There’s a beauty in the grind, there’s a beauty in the sweat,” goes a saying at the Heat. That is roughly what takes place in the background.
Highlights for Spoelstra included winning 27 games in a row to lead the 2012–13 team to a 66–16 record (the second-longest winning streak in NBA history), winning the NBA titles in 2012 and 2013 with teams led by LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, and Chris Bosh, and winning nine NBA coach of the month awards. No coach in the NBA has won more postseason games during Spoelstra’s time in Miami; he has 109, ten more than Kerr had with Golden State.
The Heat place a high value on consistency, and few sports teams have had as much success there as Miami has. In the 36-year history of the team, just six coaches have held the position: Ron Rothstein served as the first coach for three years, Kevin Loughery for portions of four years, and Alvin Gentry, who filled in temporarily to complete the 1994–1995 season.
Riley traveled from New York to Miami at that time. After serving as coach until 2003, Stan Van Gundy was elevated from assistant coach to head coach. After Van Gundy resigned 21 games into his third season, Riley came off the bench to help the Heat win their first NBA championship in 2006. However, Riley left the team once more following the
