The Best Head Coaches for the Miami Heat

The Miami Heat have had six different coaches since entering the NBA in 1988. Miami’s only NBA Championship came in 2006. The three bestcoaches in the history of the Heat franchise are Pat Riley, Erik Spoelstra and Stan Van Gundy.

Stan Van Gundy (2003 “2005)

Stan Van Gundy named the head coach of the Heat in 2003 but would only last three seasons. Van Gundy was am asisstant coach to Pat Riley in the years leading in to him being named boss coach. Van Gundy has a impressive winning percentage as a coach in the regular season for Miami at approximately 60%, but he coached in just 185 games. As good as Van Gundy was in the regular season, he had little success in the playoffs. Van Gundy was ultimately pushed aside by Pat Riley, who returned the sidelines in 2005.

Erik Spoelstra (2008 “Present)

After a disastrous season of 15-67, Pat Riley stepped down as the head coach for a second time and Erik Spoelstra was hired as the new head coach of the Heat. Spoelstra has spent his entire NBA coaching career with the Heat. Spoelstra has been given the challenging task to lead the new and infamous “Big 3″ of Chris Bosh, LeBron James and Dwayne Wade. The players have raised expectations to an all-time high in Miami, and its up to Spoelstra to lead them to an NBA Championship. The Heat made the NBA Finals in the 2010-11 season, and were a popular NBA betting choice to win it all. However, they could not get past the Dallas Mavericks. So far Spoelstra has done an excellent job managing the 3 superstars, and it figures to be only a matter a time before the Heat win their 2nd NBA Championship.

Pat Riley (1995 “2003 & 2005 “2008)

Pat Riley coached the Miami Heat to their only NBA Championship in 2006. Riley coached Miami a total of 11 seasons. He has coached the Miami Heat for 849 games and has the most regular season wins at 454. He has coached the Heat in 50 playoff games winning 24 of them. Pat Riley was generally a cool, calm and collected coach but in the 2002 to 2003 season, he was fined several times for lashing out at referees after games due to a really frustrating season. Miami finish that year with a record of 25″57. The following season Riley made a decision to step away from the sidelines and went to the front office of the organization. Nonetheless Riley was not finished just yet, he found the need to coach the team again and got the opportunity in 2005 when Gundy stepped down. The team right away had an instant turnabout and would go on to finish the year 52-30. Riley’s season after the Championship win was horrible and the horrendous results quickly took a toll on him. It was not long after, Riley stepped aside again, leading the way for Spoelstra to assume control of the team.

Pat Riley is the only Miami coach to be named Coach of the Year. He achieved this feat in the 1996-97 season. More impressively, Pat Riley is the sole coach for Miami to be voted into the Hall-Of-Fame. Those two things easily make him the best coach in Heat history.

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Written by Jack Jones on February 16th, 2012 with comments disabled.
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