LeBron and Spoelstra feud brewing!

[dpaps]

Gotta blame the players on this one and some on Pat Riley.

The roster just isn't good enough due to all the injuries and the scrubs the Heat have on their bench.

Coach Spo isn't the problem, he's the reason they are still over .500 team right now.

I disagree with this. After signing LBJ and Bosh, Riley had basically no more money to work with. Mike Miller and Udonis rightfully got a large chunk of the remaining dough, but I don't think we can blame Riley for injuries. I actually thought the heat did a better job than I expected of filling out the remaining spots with minimum contracts.

I also think that Spols has a good basketball mind, but when you have the talent Miami does, and you are not winning, you have to blame the head coach. If I were coaching the heat and had this record, I'd take 100% of the blame, I'd bet Spols would too. It's really inexcusable from all parties.

[scootman]

lebron is a classless jerk.

[scootman]

that being said i think they should bench him a game maybe it would teach him some manors.  Just because you have talent doesn't mean you can act like an immature tit. ( said in British accent)

[Jon]

I still think the Spoelstra is Riley's sacrificial lamb.  I think Riley knew there would be chemistry problems at first and thought it would be good to have someone to pin it on. 

I think he always intended to come back.  I just think he wanted someone to take the blame when things initially didn't go right. 

[Tai]

I do have this nagging feeling that they deliberately trying to lose.Just to have a reason to insert Riley to be their coach again. I feel so sorry for Eric… hey maybe we could recruit him to be our defensive coordinator.

Lebron's a jerk, but let's be real. Most thought the Heat would have problems early on, and now they have injuries in their already questionable bench on top of it. No Miller AND no Haslem?

They're not doing well. It's that simple.

[Eeyore III]

Who has a bigger ego, Riley or LBJ?  That is the real question.

Spoelstra was (note the tense) just the dupe.

T-Mac was right for once: LBJ and D-Wdae are just terrible on the court together.  Turrible.

[nba is the worst]

I still think the Spoelstra is Riley's sacrificial lamb.  I think Riley knew there would be chemistry problems at first and thought it would be good to have someone to pin it on. 

I think he always intended to come back.  I just think he wanted someone to take the blame when things initially didn't go right. 

You may be right - but now that it's this bad it's hard to see Riley taking over...

[Finkelskyhook]

I don't think the messiah will respect Riley much more than he does Spoelstra.  But I find it hard to imagine that the messiah would have any respect for someone who looks younger than him and has no NBA pedigree.

[birdwatcher]

I don't think the messiah will respect Riley much more than he does Spoelstra.  But I find it hard to imagine that the messiah would have any respect for someone who looks younger than him and has no NBA pedigree.

Agreed. I think it's what ultimately got Laurence Frank fired too, lucky for us. I posted on another thread that I feel there are very few coaches who could coach Miami--Stan Van Gundy, Doc & Phil Jackson. I think Riley will rub Bron the wroooong way.
And to whoever posted about Arroyo, I agree. In fact, they don't need a PG in the starting 5 at all--they need another 2 guard who can shoot/score without holding the ball, let LeBron or Wade do that because they need to in order to be successful individually. Ray Allen would have been perfect for them, honestly.

[footey]

This should be offered to the National Enquirer ... it's perfect for them.

Actually the National Enquirer breaks a lot of big stories, when no one else in the media will touch it. Just ask John Edwards.

[slamtheking]

I don't think the messiah will respect Riley much more than he does Spoelstra.  But I find it hard to imagine that the messiah would have any respect for someone who looks younger than him and has no NBA pedigree.

Agreed. I think it's what ultimately got Laurence Frank fired too, lucky for us. I posted on another thread that I feel there are very few coaches who could coach Miami--Stan Van Gundy, Doc & Phil Jackson. I think Riley will rub Bron the wroooong way.
And to whoever posted about Arroyo, I agree. In fact, they don't need a PG in the starting 5 at all--they need another 2 guard who can shoot/score without holding the ball, let LeBron or Wade do that because they need to in order to be successful individually. Ray Allen would have been perfect for them, honestly.

very true-- Ray would have been a good fit for them assuming he's on the court as the SG and Wade becomes the de facto PG.  The one primary reason it would never happen is they shot their financial load on Bosh and Bron with very little leftover.  Ray was worth more than what Miller accepted and Haslem could be resigned without cap impact thanks to being their own FA.

[Roy H.]

I don't think the messiah will respect Riley much more than he does Spoelstra.  But I find it hard to imagine that the messiah would have any respect for someone who looks younger than him and has no NBA pedigree.

Agreed. I think it's what ultimately got Laurence Frank fired too, lucky for us. I posted on another thread that I feel there are very few coaches who could coach Miami--Stan Van Gundy, Doc & Phil Jackson. I think Riley will rub Bron the wroooong way.
And to whoever posted about Arroyo, I agree. In fact, they don't need a PG in the starting 5 at all--they need another 2 guard who can shoot/score without holding the ball, let LeBron or Wade do that because they need to in order to be successful individually. Ray Allen would have been perfect for them, honestly.

very true-- Ray would have been a good fit for them assuming he's on the court as the SG and Wade becomes the de facto PG.  The one primary reason it would never happen is they shot their financial load on Bosh and Bron with very little leftover.  Ray was worth more than what Miller accepted and Haslem could be resigned without cap impact thanks to being their own FA.

All true accept for the part about Haslem.  The Heat had to renounce their Bird rights to Haslem to sign Lebron, et. al., in free agency.  Therefore, Haslem had to be signed with the Heat's remaining cap room.

[nbacardDOTnet]

lebron is a classless jerk.

[Bankshot]

This is all too funny.   Before they played one game, Miami players were talking about winning multiple championships right out of the gate.  ESPN were on their jocks too, like it didn't matter that they had no big man or thin bench.  It didn't even matter who coached them.  Now that they are struggling, it's the coach's fault. ****!

[Papatrichs]

here's what Zach has to say on this ordeal.
http://nba-point-forward.si.com/2010/11/29/miami-tensions-is-spo-really-to-blame/?utm_campaign=SNS%20Basketball&utm_medium=Twitter&xid=si_nba&utm_source=SNS.analytics

Miami tensions: Is Spoelstra really to blame?
The Heat have lost four of their last five games, and road losses to the Magic and Mavericks (the latter of which was not nearly as close as the 11-point margin might indicate) over the extended Thanksgiving holiday dropped Miami to 1-7 against teams with winning records. The weekend also gave us that strange bump between LeBron James and coach Erik Spoelstra, which made for fantastic YouTube footage and over-analytical psychobabble.

The drama continues Monday morning, as ESPN’s Chris Broussard has at least two inside sources claiming the players are questioning Spoelstra’s leadership. In Broussard’s telling, you can boil down the complaints of the Heat players to three things:


1) Miami’s offense lacks creativity, and the players blame Spoelstra.

2) Spoelstra has been too strict with them, particularly James, whom the coach scolded for an alleged lack of seriousness in front of the entire team during a shootaround.

3) Spoelstra is concerned about his job security and taking those worries out on his players.

Let’s start with No. 2 because everyone will want to go there anyway. Here is the source’s description — it’s unclear whether this is a first- or second-hand account – of the Spoelstra-James shootaround incident:

Exhibit A was a recent shootaround in which Spoelstra told James that he had to get more serious. The source said Spoelstra called James out in front of the entire team, telling him, “I can’t tell when you’re serious.”

“He’s jumping on them,” one source said. “If anything, he’s been too tough on them. Everybody knows LeBron is playful and likes to joke around, but Spoelstra told him in front of the whole team that he has to get more serious. The players couldn’t believe it. They feel like Spoelstra’s not letting them be themselves.”

My response: too bad. Spoelstra is the coach of the team, and if he believes the Heat — who are mired in a very disappointing start — are joking around when they should be serious, he’s entitled to call them out. Coaches criticize their players, both in private and in public. This season alone, Phil Jackson tweaked Kobe Bryant’s shot selection, Jim O’Brien had strong words for several of his Pacers, John Kuester asked for leadership from his Pistons veterans, Paul Westphal criticized the entirety of the Kings’ roster, New Jersey’s Avery Johnson demoted Terrence Williams to the D-League, Cleveland’s Byron Scott scolded J.J. Hickson (repeatedly) for failing to grasp the intricacies of his Princeton-style offense … shall we keep going?

Coaches criticize their players, even the star players. James and the Heat might not be used to it, but it’s part of the deal, and an uncomfortable outburst here and there should be expected given the pressure on everyone in Miami.

The far larger issue is that first bullet point about Miami’s offense. On the one hand, the Heat rank sixth in the league in points per possession — above Boston, Utah, New Orleans, Orlando and Dallas. That’s better than respectable. On the other hand, a look at Miami’s game-by-game performance shows it fattened up its offensive rating with eviscerations of Toronto, Minnesota and Phoenix, and has struggled to score (especially of late) against good teams.

The Heat remain last in the league in points in the paint, though that is mitigated largely by their hole at center and the fact that they are getting to the foul line quite often. Still, only the Wizards are taking more long two-point jumpers per game, and that’s not what fans expected when the Heat united three of the league’s most efficient scorers.

And if you watch the games, you see it — the offense shows only fleeting bursts of what it could be and devolves into a stale pick-and-roll routine in between those isolated pieces of brilliance. The three-man game we all dreamed of appears every so often, in the form of James’ entering the ball to Chris Bosh and then setting an off-the-ball screen for Dwyane Wade. But you see those things on maybe a half-dozen possessions per game. James and Wade have not functioned well together, and the more I watch this team play, the more I realize why the triangle offense, with its constant movement and passing, is a thing to be treasured in Los Angeles (if not yet in Minnesota).

So is this on Spoelstra?

Of course. At least, in part. He designs the playbook, sets the team’s philosophy and calls at least some of the plays. But Spoelstra is only 17 games into a huge challenge – one that involves building an offense around two ball-dominating stars after spending two previous seasons stressing defense and building a traditional NBA offense around one ball-dominating star. And it’s not as if James and Wade have a huge amount of experience setting back screens, cutting off of big men and darting around the court without the ball. They have some — Cleveland’s offense hit another gear when James worked well off the ball — but hopes for a new offense rest on both the stars and the coaches making huge changes. That takes time.

Will Spoelstra get that time?