RealGM

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I would take Riley and SVG without question. I think Spo is decent but nothing special. He's been the most successful coach in Heat history. If you take that as greatest, then he is I guess. I see Spo as successful as in Robert Horry successful.

We've had some really good coaching through this team, we've been lucky.

definitely not. pat riley. riley built everything from scratch here. both spo and svg benefited from that. i think its close between spo and svg. svg i think was less stubborn but spo is probably more innovative. riley won a ring with a band of misfits that ran svg out of town. spo would not have survived either.

Why isn't Ron rothstien a choice?

HIF wrote:Why isn't Ron rothstien a choice?

Other is a choice but he's not on SPO or Riley level to me...

It's still Pat Riley, but it seems Spo will be here for a very long time so he still has the chance to become our greatest coach. I don't think he will ever be as good as Pat, but if he stays for like another 10 years or more with good results ( severals deep PS run and a few championship runs ), then it would be hard to argue against him.

I still find him an above average coach.

His legacy with the Heat is more about his body work and being Riley's protegé than his coaching skills.

I'd **** take Chris motha **** Quinn before Spo!

no.

It's definitely Riley. I think Spo can at least be considered on par with SVG at this point though, SVG's accomplishments as a Heat coach amount to a feel good season in 03-04, a solid run in 04-05 with a slight bit of meltdown in the ECF, and a failure to cope with egos in 05-06 that you can't totally fault him for.

Spo's 08-09 and 09-10 campaigns are comparable to SVG's 03-04, but without the first round win (although the Hornets of 03-04 I'd argue are easily the weakest first round opponent faced). His LeBron seasons are all about as good as SVG's one good Shaq/Wade year. And while it can be argued the reason Spo withstood the egos on his team had more to do with Riley standing behind him than him being a better coach than SVG, the fact things really turned around from that rocky start in 10-11 should be a feather in his cap.

Last year was obviously an unremarkable season, but that team had all kinds of injury problems and never really had a solid identity with guys in and out of the lineup. This season, and more specifically the second half of this season, is the most consistent we've been in terms of our identity post LeBron, with an established 8 man rotation and an established playing style, and its shown in our record, 16-8 with a +5.3 point differential, basically a 55+ win team.

I understand people want to give the players all the credit, but think about this for a second. If I told you 2 years ago that LeBron would leave, and Spo would have us playing .660 ball with a hobbled Wade, Goran Dragic, Luol Deng, the shells of Amare Stoudemire and Joe Johnson, a D-leaguer who had been out of the NBA for 2 seasons, and 2 rookies, as our 8 man rotation, you would have said he did a great job. But now its taken for granted that Justise, J-Rich and Hassan would be as good as they are, that Amare and Joe would have fit this seamlessly, that Wade and Dragic could have coexisted... I'm not saying its all Spo, but just like he at times can be faulted for things, he also deserves some credit in all that's going on here.

EDIT: Random aside, kinda funny that now every big 2010 free agent besides Carlos Boozer has played for us, when Boozer was considered the one we were most likely to get back before the big 3 dream became reality. Joe, Bosh, LeBron, Wade, Amare... I think Boozer is the only 2010 max guy we haven't had now.

I liked Stan then id say Pat but ultimately that was still Stans team and teachings but Pat put them over the top.
Spo might prove to be better some day but he is still learning, took a T for Whiteside last night and starting to lean on youth, I like where he is going. However guys are still overplayed and rotations still get stagnant. On a side note Riley doesnt get us a ring if he doesnt step away and let Stan right the ship before jumping back in.

Shock thread is not started by HIF

/SHOCKED

Tuff Gong wrote:Shock thread is not started by HIF

/SHOCKED

Not at all.

Riley is by far the greatest head coach/GM in the history of the NBA.

dolphinatik wrote:I liked Stan then id say Pat but ultimately that was still Stans team and teachings but Pat put them over the top.
Spo might prove to be better some day but he is still learning, took a T for Whiteside last night and starting to lean on youth, I like where he is going. However guys are still overplayed and rotations still get stagnant. On a side note Riley doesnt get us a ring if he doesnt step away and let Stan right the ship before jumping back in.

Guys are barely playing 30 mpg, who is being overplayed?

One thing I learned from the poll is that there are at least 6 members of Spo's family/relatives who have RealGM accounts.

Or, they only have been watching Heat since the LeBron years.

Forget all the other years. Forget Bosh, too (since we've played better w/o him for whatever reasons.)
This year's team is struggling to fight for a home court in the first round with a healthy Wade, the best center in the East, a top 5 PG in the East (I'm really underrating here, imo.) one of the best perimeter defenders, savvy, still productive, veteran former all-stars in Deng, JJ, and STAT. Damn, we are loaded. We were so talented on paper, we were predicted, by some experienced basketball minds, to challenge Cavs for the #1 seed in the East. Anything short of #2 seed in the East is an underachievement in my book.

Spo does juuuust enough to not screw up and that's his talent. It's like watching a co-worker who doesn't contribute much to the team but does just enough to get through another day. Man, if they just screw up one simple thing, they'll be fired on the spot...
And, I am not bashing him. I think he is an okay coach, there are far worse than him. I just don't go, I am so glad he's our coach. I think he's an excellent assistant coach/a mediocre head coach. Hopefully he gets better as he ages (if he's still here since I don't see Riley firing him.)

Does anyone here think he makes the playoff with this year's Celtics' roster?

C'mon now. Pull yourselves together. 7 people exist in this world who think spo is a better coach than Pat Riley? Baffling. Riley's possibly the greatest coach of all-time. Spo is right in that sweet spot between rothstein and loughery. And light years below Riley and even SVG. Hell we're getting beat in the standings by coaches blatantly doing more with less and some of you would put him ahead of Pat? Madness. Get your lIves in order.

we have 7 crazy mother f*ckers on this forum