LeBron James Must Stand With the Miami Heat, Not Above Them

Miami Heat head coach, Erik Spoelstra, is not in the hot seat ESPN is saying he's in.

On the contrary, Heat president Pat Riley has said time and time again that Spoelstra is the right guy for the job.

One source went on to state "Riley keeps saying 'Spoelstra's a good coach and he'll grow into a great coach,' Riley said he got his coaching break with the Los Angeles Lakers around the same age as Spoelstra got his.”

Why would Riley fire a coach that he himself hand-picked to take over the Miami Heat bench?

Earlier this week, Los Angeles Head Coach Phil Jackson spoke on the topic, "The scenario that sits kind of behind the scene, is that eventually these guys that were recruited -- Bosh and James -- by Pat Riley and Mickey Arrison, the owner, are going to come in and say, 'We feel you [Riley] can do a better job coaching the team. We came here on the hopes that this would work,' and whatever, I don't know," Jackson said. 

The only way I see Riley coming back to coaching is if Erick Spoelstra is demoted to Riley’s top assistant in order to learn how to run a star-studded team.

But would such a thing really happen?  

Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo Sports reported that for the first time in his career, LeBron is hearing a word that he never really heard it before—"no".

Erik Spoelstra is being the type of coach Mike Brown wasn’t in LeBron’s tenure as a Cavalier. Everyone always gave him the “yes” right away because he’s “the king” but here in Miami, he’s simply another player and he needs to understand that.

In Miami, we have a president and an owner that think "team" not "LeBron" first.

It looks as if LeBron doesn’t understand what he signed up for—he signed up for the MIAMI Heat, not the LeBron-James-do-what-you-want-in-south-beach Heat.

The funniest part is how ESPN is promoting the idea that Erik Spoelstra is panicking and fearing for his job. But truth be told, he’s been behaving in the opposite way.

Spoelstra isn’t running from LeBron, he's running at him.

Contrary to popular belief, Spoelstra is not afraid to criticize superstars LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh.

In fact, he's been hard on them. Holding them accountable for every little thing

"He's jumping on them," one source said. "If anything, he's been too tough on them”.

Really?

Erick Spoeltra, the guy people are saying isn’t “cut out” for this job is being too tough on LeBron?

Get over it.

If this was a Pat Riley team, LeBron would probably hate it right now.

Riley is known around the league for his tough conditioning, and refusal to take anything from anyone.

If a player called out Riley or worse bumped into him, he would bench that player no matter if it was Chris Quinn or LeBron James—just ask Antoine Walker.

This article is brought to you by: Crank Up The HEAT