LeBron, Spoelstra Developing Shared Vision
Apr 06, 2011 3:24 PM EDT
LeBron James and Erik Spoelstra's relationship was rocky in the beginning,
with James reportedly leaking information to the media that indicated Heat players were unhappy with Spoelstra’s leadership.
"It takes a while to develop trust," Spoelstra said. "From a coaching standpoint you have to fight for players' trust every single day. Every single meeting. Whenever you talk to them -- game, pregame, shoot-around, practice. I think every coach has that same feeling."
Recently, in the 150 seconds that make up most timeouts, LeBron and Spoelstra have been in a kind of mind meld.
"Sometimes -- a lot of times actually now -- during timeouts I start to diagram something and he says, ‘Coach, can I say something,' almost like he's a student in class,'" Spoelstra said. "And I'll say, ‘Yeah, absolutely, quickly, we got 2-1/2,' so I can assimilate it and then possibly translate it to the team.
"Sometimes we're not even finishing sentences with each other. He'll say something and I know exactly what he's talking about," Spoelstra said, snapping his fingers, his words coming out faster, his voice fired up. "And I'll say something and I'm halfway through my sentence and he'll finish my sentence and we go to explain to everybody else and everyone's sitting in the huddle there going, ‘What just happened there?'
Spoelstra's message becomes stronger because it's also LeBron's message.
"That's the gift and the curse because I have some of my own methods and Coach has some of his own and we both know the game, we both believe in some of the things that we know, but we both have to figure out a way (to do it together)," LeBron said. "Which we have."
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http://basketball.realgm.com/wiretap/212888/LeBron_Spoelstra_Developing_Shared_Vision#ixzz1IrEMLvYp
