Miami Heat president Pat Riley just finished his 30th season with the organization. That milestone was recognized at the start of this past season, with the Heat dedicating its home court to Riley.
But Riley isn’t the only one who reached that mark this year, as Heat coach Erik Spoelstra also just finished his 30th season with the organization. While Spoelstra’s milestone wasn’t publicly celebrated this past season, Riley made sure to acknowledge it during his season-ending news conference last week.
“Erik has been doing this for 30 years intensely as the video coordinator up to being my main assistant coach, 17 straight years coaching,” Riley said.
Then Riley went out of his way to make it known that he believes Spoelstra needs a break after a rough season that included Jimmy Butler’s ugly and dramatic exit, a 10-game losing skid and being on the wrong side of the most lopsided playoff series in NBA history.
“He’s been here for 30 years, never took a year off and never takes a break,” Riley continued. “He’s had some personal issues in his life and I see the strain and stress on him like I’ve never seen it before. This takes a toll. And when I talked to him the other day, he said he was going to Hawaii and I said: ‘Good, I’ll see you in training camp then.’ That’s not going to happen, but he needs a break and he needs time to reflect.”
Spoelstra, 54, just finished his 17th season as the Heat’s head coach after initially being hired by the Heat as the video coordinator in 1995. With Gregg Popovich recently stepping down as the San Antonio Spurs’ coach, Spoelstra is now the NBA’s longest active tenured head coach with one team.
Spoelstra is also already the winningest head coach in franchise history in both the regular season (787 wins) and playoffs (110 wins), passing Riley on both lists.
“As far as Spo goes, he’s in great shape. He just needs some time to decompress,” Riley said. “Really, he just needs time. Every coach in this league after a season, it is a grind. It really is a grind. I mean, hockey is a grind, basketball is a grind. Guys make a lot of money and they get judged for how much money they make versus the grind that they have to go through. And the NBA is hard. You’re playing probably up to 100 games per year and you’re on the road half the year, you’re in at 3 a.m. It’s just a grind.”
One area that Spoelstra needs to address after taking some time to decompress this offseason is the Heat’s inefficient offense. While the Heat closed this regular season with a top-10 defensive rating for the ninth time in the past 10 seasons, the Heat also finished with a bottom-10 offensive rating for the third straight regular season — 21st-ranked this season, 21st-ranked for the 2023-24 season and 25th-ranked for the 2022-23 season among the NBA’s 30 teams.
“He’ll figure this out,” Riley said, expressing confidence in Spoelstra. “He knows, first, we need to defend and he needs to make whatever kind of changes he needs to make when it comes to the offense. We’ll talk about that. If he wants to listen to me, he will. If he doesn’t, he has a lot of great people working for him.”
As for Riley, he made it clear during his season-ending news conference last week that he’s not thinking about retirement even after turning 80 in March.
“I just turned 80 and I’m proud of it. Eighty is the new 60,” said Riley, who spent 11 seasons as the Heat’s head coach and has served as the team president since he arrived in 1995. “That’s how I look at it. I feel great. I’m competitive as hell. I love being in the bowl. I’m an Irish guy, so there’s a depressive disorder that I have from being just Irish and hating losing because it makes me miserable. When you’re miserable, you get a little bit depressed. And we all have that in us. All of us have a depressive disorder and that’s when things go bad. I got a little depressed after those last two [playoff games against the Cleveland Cavaliers last month].”
After being eliminated in the first round of the playoffs in two straight seasons, Riley’s challenge is to improve a Heat roster that finished in 10th place in the Eastern Conference this season.
During Riley’s successful 30-year run with the organization, the Heat has made 24 postseason appearances while making seven trips to the NBA Finals and winning its only three NBA championships. But the Heat’s last championship came more than a decade ago in 2013.
“[Heat owner Micky Arison] and [Heat chief executive officer Nick Arison] and I met, they’ve been very good to me,” Riley said. “They said, ‘Carry on, Pat.’ I’m going to carry on and try to make this thing better.”
