With Miami Heat head coach, Erik Spoelstra, off coaching the U.S. Select team, helping prepare Team USA for the upcoming Tokyo Olympics, he has a chance to get exposed to not only some of the best talent that the world and the NBA has to offer with the big team, but also some of the best up and coming talent in his own Select Team.
In example, he’ll have the continuing privilege of coaching his very own guy, Tyler Herro, as apart of the process as well. Another up and coming Kentucky Wildcat alum that he’s coaching on the Select team is Keldon Johnson of the San Antonio Spurs.
Speaking recently in a camp related appearance, Johnson had quite the bit to say on how he was taking the whole process in, as far as working with Coach Spoelstra and how that stacked up to working with his own full-time coach, Gregg Popovich, who also just so happens to be the coach of the big squad.
The Miami Heat have one of the best coaches in the league. It isn’t hard to see it either.
There’s all sorts of interesting little nuggets and intricacies there. Here is the Johnson quote though.
Keldon Johnson on the differences between coach Spoelstra and coach Popovich: pic.twitter.com/PcaMfw8eNv
— Noah Magaro-George (@N_Magaro) July 8, 2021
Highlighting the differences and the similarities, the differences really aren’t all that different. While they may, schematically, differ at any given moment in time in a season or from year to year, that’s actually all the same as well.
Coach Spoelstra and Coach Popovich are chameleons of the craft. They change and transform on a year to year or game to game basis, if needed, to adapt to what the team does best or the best way to beat the opposition.
That’s how, though, there are differences and as highlighted by Johnson’s quote, they aren’t that great or vast in the grand scheme of it all. That’s what makes them both great coaches though.
Though Pop has done it at a higher level than Spo and for a longer period of time, Coach Spoelstra has his respect, as evident by the Select team appointment and other love, adoration, and comments throughout the years. This, though, might be one of the greatest forms of the same respect though.
A Pop pupil, who’s had the chance to be under Popovich every day, soaking up the abundance of that experience and the wisdom that he has to offer, speaks highly of the similarities between the two. That’s big and especially for a guy of Johnson’s experience, meaning someone who will give it to you straight and isn’t as bound by politics or image.
At the end of the day, it reaffirms what many have known for a long time and especially Miami Heat fans. Coach Spoelstra is, indeed, one of the best coaches in the league and you don’t have to be around him long to figure that out.
It also reaffirms the old adage. Great minds do, indeed, think alike.