“You don’t ever come in my office and tell me to fire a coach” Pat Riley defended Miami Heat coach Erik Spoelstra when the players wanted to fire him

The Miami Heat are now the Champions of the Eastern Conference after they defeated the Boston Celtics in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference finals. They have reached the NBA Championship finals and will face Nikola Jokic’s Denver Nuggets.

However, months ago, the Heat struggled in the regular season and there were rumours of sacking their coach Eric Spoelstra. But crushing all the rumours the team has stayed on with the coach and he has given them the desired results. Spoelstra joined the franchise as a video coordinator back in 1995 and with time he rose through the ranks and became the most influential person in this team. He was handpicked by Pat Riley himself to be his successor in 2008.

However, Spoelstra has shown time and again why he was rated so highly by Riley. His tactical mind is exceptional and that is what keeps him ahead of the curve among the new coaches.

But it was never an easy start for him as a coach. He was only 37 and was leading a team full of veterans that included LeBron James, Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosh. His initial days as coach were tough as he was looking to find the sync between the players. There were speculations that he might be replaced by the management.

During an episode of the Simmons Podcast, Michael Lombardi revealed an incident. “This is a story – this isn’t a fact, but it’s fairly reliable – that players went in to complain about Spoelstra. And he went downstairs and told everybody downstairs, ‘I’ll be in there in 15 minutes.’

The players including the meg-superstars did come to Riley to complain about coach Spoelstra. But Riley was rigid in his stance and told them to play basketball and leave these issues to him. Lombardi explained, “He made them all line up against the wall. And basically, all the mega-superstars that were there, he told every one of them, ‘You don’t ever come in my office and tell me to fire a coach. Your job is to play basketball.’ That’s culture!”

There have been speculations on Lombardi’s statements. While he did not came out and specify a name among the Heat players, it was pretty clear that the superstar was none other than LeBron James. Rumours suggest that LeBron wanted to change coach Spoelstra as the Heat head coach.

However, after so many years, Riley was proved right. His trust in Spoelstra worked out really well. He is currently the second-largest tenured coach in the Association and if he manages to drive the eighth-seeded Heat to an NBA Championship, it will do his reputation a world of good.