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Pops is really good but Spoelstra made the heat an amazing team and is making everyone else change how they play. I hate the heat but you gotta give credit where its due.
No doubt, Spoelstra made the heat an amazing team. Not that guy named Lebron James being the best player on the planet teamed up with two other superstars and solid role players...
Despite the superstars I do think Spoelstra is a pretty good coach. There's always gonna be a ton of pressure coaching a squad like that but I think he's handled it well as well as managing the ego's of the players & things like that. He cant be too incompetent if Pat Riley's backing him, ya know?
I agree, I think he is a decent coach, but I'm just saying you give him the Grizzlies, Pacers, Nuggets, or Spurs and Spoelstra wouldnt be taking those teams to great records. Maybe he could, I don't know. Im going off what I see and I dont see him as a great strategic coach. Riley has forgotten more about basketball than I'll ever know so who am I to say this? If the Heat win it all this season then I'll give him more credit because he will have beaten good teams strategically rather than his superstars out dueling the Thunder's superstars. If they lose then we will see how he deals with the immense pressure
Well currently i think spolstra is great because hes sticking to a style and its working. hes built his offense and defense around analytics and size mismatches that weigh just as much on guys like battier as it does on lebron. Obviously lebron is good and it lends a certain flexibility to his current style that may not exist on other teams but on the other hand, lebron isnt the only guy on the team playing defense. its especially noticeable when theyre against good teams because a lot of times other teams wont adjust to it because they think its bullshit. I think the style caught a lot of people off guard.
Small ball and mismatch has existed forever but most of the time teams dont build their whole strategy around using it and i think that the heat winning the finals against a pretty dominant thunder team really got people to look at the way he was doing things.
Also spoelstras big on analytics. other coaches are too and its also been around forever but hes reaaally into it. He builds data sets for other teams and he finds ways to use it to suggest adjustments to players and when he rotates guys on/off the court, and how to maximize a players potential. You can totally make the argument that lebron kinda fuddles how much of an effect this stuff has had and then the general incompetence of the eastern conference but im willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.
Contrast that with popovich who isnt into computer analytics and sticks mostly to fundamentals/using his system. Hes a magician for seeing things others dont but thats not really that accessible to other coaches, what spoelstras is doing is something anybody can do which makes his style more game changing.
All of this kinda makes this years potential finals really interesting if it ends up being spurs-heat. Its either a huge referendum on what spoelstra's doing or the ultimate vindication. The old master vs the new kid on the block. Ok, so maybe hes not the ~best~ coach but hes certainly one of the most interesting ones in the league in the last decade. anyways thats just my opinion.