“I always say Pat Riley set the standard, but Coach Spo improved on it. You really see his DNA inside the organization now.” Dwyane Wade’s words hit like a buzzer-beater—full of respect, full of history. Wade and Erik Spoelstra didn’t just work together; they built something legendary. Championships, battles, brotherhood—the whole Miami Heat culture was forged in that fire. But hey, what’s a dynasty without a little drama? From the ‘Heatles’ era (2010-14) to the Jimmy-Butler-Pat-Riley face-offs, the Heat have always brought the heat on and off the court. Because one was built differently.

Back in the early ‘Heatles’ days, Wade and Spoelstra didn’t exactly start on smooth terms. On his Time Out podcast, Wade admitted he was “hot” when Spo started cutting his minutes. “I used to play like 38–40 minutes,” he said. “Then it got to a point where Spo had to cut my minutes… down to like 34. I was hot because I’m thinking, ‘Oh, you f— with my numbers, my touches.’” It felt personal at the time, but it turned out to be one of Spoelstra’s smartest moves. Wade went from heavy minutes and 25.4 points on 48.5% shooting to a leaner 32.5 minutes with 20.5 points on nearly 50%. The trust they share now? The trust we see today? It had to be earned. And guess Wade’s response when asked on the matter?

When D-Wade was asked on Pardon My Take when he realized Spoelstra was special, considering the team’s uncertainty about whether Pat Riley would step back in, he straight up said, “yeah, no, we ain’t want.” He wanted Spo as the head coach. That might come as a surprise, especially since Wade had already won the 2006 NBA Championship under Riley. But for Wade, it wasn’t about nostalgia or loyalty—it was about growth. He called it “the bumps and the bruises of a first-time coach.” Spoelstra came in with undeniable strengths—“his preparation is incredible, his work ethic is off the charts”—but Wade knew coaching was about so much more.

It wasn’t until around year two or three that Spo started to grow. Wade watched him “start reinventing himself” after their crushing Finals loss in 2011, diving into film, studying other great coaches, and evolving every season. What became clear was that Wade’s respect for Spoelstra wasn’t built overnight—it was earned over time. He remembered how Spo had been there since the beginning: “He was the guy who helped me with my game early on. He was my workout guy, he was in the video room, and then he come up and help me work out after practice.” But stepping into the head coach role was a whole new beast.

That’s why Wade appreciated the team Riley built around Spo—veteran voices like David Fizdale and Keith Askins, guys who could challenge him and give him space to grow. “You can’t bring a young coach in and fire him in the first three years, you have to give them space and time to learn how to be a coach especially in the professional league and so Spo has that, and he had that with Pat and so he wasn’t going anywhere,” Dwyane Wade explained. Riley never wavered, and that stability made all the difference. Today, Wade doesn’t hold back his praise: Spo “works his tail off,” and “nobody works harder than Spo.”

Did LeBron James want Spoelstra to get fired?

Back in 2010, when the Miami Heat assembled their superstar trio of LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, and Chris Bosh, expectations were sky high. But after a rocky 9-8 start, the pressure started boiling. Spoelstra, young and relatively unproven, was suddenly coaching what many considered the most stacked team in the league. Riley, the team’s president and legendary coach, later revealed in The Soul of Basketball that LeBron might’ve been looking for a change on the sidelines. “They just said, ‘We’re not feeling it,’ or something like that,” Riley told author Ian Thomsen. Then came the moment Riley couldn’t shake.

“I remember LeBron looking at me, and he said, ‘Don’t you ever get the itch?’ I said, ‘The itch for what?’ He said, ‘The itch to coach again?’ I said, ‘No, I don’t have the itch.’ He didn’t ask any more questions, and I didn’t offer any more answers. But I know what it meant.” But before anything drastic could go down, Wade stepped in. He had already experienced Riley’s intense coaching style when Miami won the title in 2006, and he wasn’t trying to relive that ride.

In a conversation that stuck with both players, Wade told LeBron, “I told him, ‘You don’t want Riley to coach this team.’ Ain’t got nothing to do with Pat, I love him! ‘You don’t want Riley to coach this team.’” He made it crystal clear that while Spoelstra didn’t have the championship pedigree yet, they were better off growing with him than inviting Riley’s famously unforgiving coaching back into the fold. “We gonna help him grow! You don’t want the Godfather to come back. He did it in 2006, I experienced it. That was enough.”

Years later, in 2016, after LeBron had returned to Cleveland and Miami’s Big Three era was officially over, Pat Riley addressed the rumors head-on—and denied it ever happened. “Not from him to me, ever,” Riley said firmly. “So a lot of stuff is following him out the door. Whether it’s right or wrong, it’s just the nature of it. But as far as that goes, no, he never, ever walked in and said anything,” completely denying the fact that LBJ ever asked for Spo to get replaced.

Dwyane Wade always saw something special in Erik Spoelstra. Even in the Heat’s early struggles, he trusted Spo’s vision—and stood firm in making sure it had room to grow.