On Dec. 20, 2021, Miami Heat head coach Erik Spoelstra was announced as an assistant coach for the 2022-24 USA National Team.
In July 2021, Spoelstra took on his first USA Basketball coaching responsibility as head coach of the 2021 USA Select Team that trained with and against the 2020 U.S. Olympic team that would win gold in Tokyo.
Spoelstra in 2021-22 completed his 14th season as head coach of the Miami Heat and his 27th as a member of the organization. He is the second-longest tenured head coach in the NBA, behind 2017-21 USA Men’s National Team head coach Popovich.
Under Spoelstra, through the 2021-22 season, Miami has compiled a 660-453 regular season record (.593 winning percentage), an 96-65 postseason mark (.596 winning percentage), 11 postseason appearances, eight division titles, five conference championships and two NBA championships (2012 and 2013).
Spoelstra is the winningest coach in Heat franchise history and holds the franchise record for playoff wins (96), series wins (20) and playoff winning percentage (.596). He also holds records for regular season victories (660), games coached (1,113), and winning percentage (.593). He helped the Heat win NBA Championships in 2012 and 2013, becoming just the eighth coach in NBA history to win back-to-back championships.
Spoelstra became at the time just the fourth head coach in NBA history to lead his team to four consecutive Finals appearances joining Red Auerbach, K.C. Jones and Pat Riley, all of whom have been inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.
Selected in 2017 to share the National Basketball Coaches Association inaugural Michael H. Goldberg Coach of the Year Award with Mike D’Antoni.
Since starting as head coach on April 28, 2008, Spoelstra has led Miami to the NBA playoffs 11 times, making it to the NBA Finals in five of those seasons, including four straight from 2010-11 to 2013-14. He has led the Heat to four 50+ win seasons, including a franchise best 66 wins during the 2012-13 season. He has won Eastern Conference Coach of the Month honors a Miami franchise-record nine times, with his best month coming in March of 2013, going 17-1 (.944 winning percentage).
Before taking over as the sixth head coach in Heat history, Spoelstra had served Miami in several roles in his first 13 years, starting with the organization during the 1997-98 season. He originally was hired as video coordinator and over the years was promoted to assistant coach/video coordinator, assistant coach/advance scout, and assistant coach/director of scouting before ascending to head coach.
In his seven seasons as the Heat’s assistant coach/director of scouting, he helped the Heat win the NBA Championship during the 2005-06 season, with a team led by U.S. Olympic gold medalists Shaquille O’Neal (1996) and Dwyane Wade (2008).
In 1992, Spoelstra graduated from the University of Portland, where he was a starting point guard for four years and was named the West Coast Conference Freshman of the Year in 1989. After graduation, he spent two years as a player/coach for Tus Herten, a professional German team.
Raised in Portland, Spoelstra, who was inducted into the Jesuit High School Athletic Hall of Fame in September 2009, is the first Asian/Filipino-American head coach in any of the major North American sports leagues.
Spoelstra is not the only member of his family to have a successful career in professional sports. His father, Jon Spoelstra, was a long-time NBA executive who guided the Portland Trail Blazers, Denver Nuggets, Buffalo Braves and New Jersey Nets and his grandfather, Watson, was a Detroit Tigers beat writer for many years.
Spoelstra and his wife, Nikki, who were married in the summer of 2016, reside in Coral Gables, with their sons Santiago and Dante.
