The Wonks Behind the NBA Finals Stars

By Scott Cacciola

Forget about LeBron vs. KD or Wade vs. Westbrook. The NBA Finals could come down to a battle of wits between a former journeyman point guard and an erstwhile video coordinator.

Two young coaches?Oklahoma City?s Scott Brooks and Miami?s Erik Spoelstra?are the wonks behind the stars, each pushing to get his team to four more wins.

For Brooks, who won a title as a player with the Houston Rockets in 1994, this series represents an opportunity. This is, after all, the Thunder?s maiden trip to the Finals, and he?s been widely lauded by the hoops intelligentsia and the public at large for molding this roster into a title contender in his fourth season. Four years ago, the Thunder won just 23 games. This season, the team finished with the league?s third-best record and has dispatched a murderer?s row of playoff opponents?the defending-champion Dallas Mavericks, Los Angeles Lakers and San Antonio Spurs.

It doesn?t hurt Brooks?s cause that Kevin Durant, a three-time scoring titlest, is one of the most phenomenal talents of his generation. He also couldn?t be further from the kind of job where tabloids eat young coaches up as a midday snack. He points to fans in Oklahoma City never booing his players when they were losing all those games a few years ago. Free of criticism, they had time to develop into a team.

?You can tell they have a definitive philosophy and a culture that everybody has bought into,? Spoelstra says, ?and it?s not a coincidence that they?ve been able to build this thing up quickly.?

For Spoelstra, who joined the Heat?s staff as a video coordinator in 1995 and slowly worked his way up the ladder, a second chance at winning a first championship is probably more of a burden than anything else. For two seasons, he has coached his team amid the glare of a mega-watt bulb. That?s what happens when management assembles one of the most formidable trios of talent in league history.

Perhaps you?ve heard? LeBron James, a three-time MVP, and perennial all-star Chris Bosh joined Dwyane Wade in Miami before the start of last season. In short order James vowed that the group would win seven titles?this before they had even played a game together. It set an impossibly high bar for Spoelstra, who was henceforth considered to be more custodian than coach: All he had to do was get out of the way and not mess things up.

Last season, the Heat reached the finals before falling to the Mavericks, and Spoelstra of course took a public spanking along with his star players. James has sounded more than willing to take the blame for last year?s result. ?I played too much to prove people wrong,? he said Monday, adding: ?I didn?t play well. I think I said that 100 times this year.?

Still, Spoelstra might have the most thankless job in professional sports. It seemed revealing Monday when he said the Heat had ?survived? three rounds just to reach this final stage of the postseason. If nothing else, Brooks can commiserate with the demands of the job.

?It?s not always easy,? he said.

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