The NBA’s general managers were surveyed on a number of topics ahead of the start of the 2024-25 season. One question that was posed to general managers was who is the best head coach in the NBA, and Miami Heat Erik Spoelstra won in a landslide.
He received 69 percent of the votes, while the runner-up — Mark Daigneault of the Oklahoma City Thunder — totaled 17 percent of the votes. Spoelstra ranked tops in that category when the survey was conducted last year as well.
Another questioned posed was which head coach is the best manager/motivator of people, and Spoelstra won that category too, even if he didn’t by a huge margin. In total, 37 percent of the folks who responded to the question voted for the 53-year-old, and nobody else received more than 17 percent of the votes.
Finally, Spoelstra received the second-most votes (24 percent) for which head coach makes the best in-game adjustments behind only Tyronn Lue and the most for which head coach has the best defensive schemes (23 percent).
Spoelstra’s resume supports his placement in several subjects of the survey related to coaching. Since he took over as the head coach of the Heat, he has helped Miami win two titles in 2012 and 2013 and make numerous NBA Finals appearances.
Not long ago, he coached the Heat — who were the No. 8 seed in the Eastern Conference — to a historic Finals run in the 2023 NBA Playoffs. Miami became only the second team in the history of the league to reach the championship series after heading into the playoffs as such a low seed.
Fortunately for Spoelstra, perhaps Miami’s two best players from that run are still members of the team. Bam Adebayo has spent the entirety of his NBA career so far with the Heat, and Jimmy Butler is entering his sixth season as a member of the storied franchise.
All in all, few NBA franchises have experienced Miami’s level of sustained success over the past decade-plus, and Spoelstra is a big reason for that.