The Miami Heat are coming off one of their most difficult seasons in quite some time.
They traded away a longtime face of the franchise in forward Jimmy Butler earlier this year after he made it clear that he wanted out of Miami. The Heat then endured their longest losing streak since head coach Erik Spoelstra has been steering the ship not long after.
Plus, while the Heat did qualify for the 2025 NBA Playoffs, they didn’t even put up a fight against the Cleveland Cavaliers (the No. 1 seed in the East) in the opening round, as they got swept.
However, one steadying presence throughout all of the trials and tribulations the Heat faced in the 2024-25 season was associate head coach Chris Quinn.
Quinn, who is a candidate to be the newest head coach of the Phoenix Suns, reportedly made sure the Heat didn’t go “sideways” during what was a tumultuous campaign.
“League sources say the Heat’s associate head coach helped keep Miami together and made sure the team didn’t go ‘sideways,’” Duane Rankin wrote.
Quinn has been a fixture of Spoelstra’s staff in Miami for many years now. He started out his coaching tenure with the Heat as a player development coach in the 2014-15 season and over the years has worked his way up to being an assistant coach and the team’s associate head coach.
He would bring plenty of experience winning at a high level to Phoenix, as he’s coached in a pair of NBA Finals under Spoelstra. The Heat qualified for the NBA Finals in 2020 and 2023, though they did lose both of those series.
Maybe Quinn’s experience and calming presence are exactly what the doctor ordered for the Suns to have a bounce-back season after they were one of the more disappointing teams in the league in the 2024-25 campaign. Phoenix employed a star-studded trio of Devin Booker, Bradley Beal and Kevin Durant, yet the team won just 36 games and ended up as the No. 11 seed in the Western Conference.
For as much as Quinn’s departure would likely be felt by members of Miami’s roster and coaching staff, it would be fascinating to see how he would fare as a head coach of an NBA team for the first time in his coaching career.
