Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Heat’s 10 most influential
These people had most effect on the franchise beyond the court
MIAMI — From the moment Rony Seikaly was the franchise’s first draft pick, Billy Thompson was added in the 1988 expansion draft and Rory Sparrow became the first free-agent addition of note, this has foremost been about the players for the Miami Heat.
And yet some of the franchise’s most towering figures never scored a point, grabbed a rebound or blocked a shot.
There has been the public-relations intern who came to stay and helped create a way to maximize possibilities under the salary cap and collective-bargaining agreement.
The strength coach who re-sculpted the physique of a franchise.
The impresario who came to view basketball as the ultimate athletic drama.
The childhood friends from Brooklyn who delivered the city game to the shores.
The coach who blew the first whistle and still resonates on the team’s broadcasts.
The scowling center who has come to deliver smiles to Overtown.
The second-generation owner who arrived with a win-first attitude. And the iconic basketball mind whose championship visions became three-dimensional reality.
Throughout this 30th-anniversary sea-
son, the South Florida Sun Sentinel will look back at three decades of the Miami Heat, at the men and the moments that have made this an exhausting, exhilarating and enduring ride.
Today we look at the 10 most influential members of the franchise beyond the playing roster. 10. Bill Foran. The goal by current president Pat Riley over these past two-plus decades has included his team being the “hardest-working, best-conditioned . . .,” well, you’ve seen the T-shirts. And yet the man charged with such body transformation, strength coach Bill Foran, predated Riley’s arrival, arriving during his inaugural 1988-89 season. Over the years, his sculpting included the likes of Ike Austin, Antoine Walker and now James Johnson. He even got Sherman Douglas to run. His son, Eric Foran, is picking up where he left off, as the team’s director of strength and conditioning. 9. Alonzo Mourning While this list goes beyond the roster, so did Mourning, with his civic involvement in South Florida, including his ongoing efforts with the Overtown Youth Center. He currently serves as the team’s vice president of player programs, charged with ensuring “the personal and professional development of Heat players” for these past nine seasons. He has remained the scowling face of the franchise, in a good way. 8. Ron Rothstein The final choice for the Heat’s first coach came down to Rothstein, then a Detroit Pistons assistant in 1988, or then-Utah Jazz assistant Jerry Sloan. Rothstein not only coached the Heat for the franchise’s first three seasons, but then coached the organization’s WNBA entry, the Miami Sol, for their three seasons, coming full cycle when he returned first as a Heat assistant coach from 2004-14. His current role is a broadcast analyst.
7. Chet Kammerer Free agency and trades have been the province of Riley since his arrival in 1995. But when it has come to the draft — a process that has delivered the likes of Caron Butler Rasual Butler, Dwyane Wade, Eddie House, Mario Chalmers, Norris Cole, Daequan Cook, Josh Richardson, Justise Winslow and Bam Adebayo, as well as undrafted prospects such as Tyler Johnson and Hassan Whiteside — that has had the fingerprints of Kammerer, who joined the franchise as a scout in 1996 and has been vice president of player personnel the past 14 seasons. 6. Erik Spoelstra He inherited a 15-67 team in 2008-09 and has gotten it to the playoffs in all but two of his nine seasons as coach, advancing to the NBA Finals four times and winning two championships, after assisting Riley on the 2006 title team. He since has added personnel input, among the team’s lead recruiters during free agency. Ultimately, he stands second to only one in the team’s coaching lineage. 5. Andy Elisburg One of very few from-day-one members of the franchise, Elisburg has risen from public-relations intern to Riley’s right-hand man. Now serving as general manager and senior vice president of basketball operations, Elisburg turns Riley’s (and many of his own) visions into reality with deft traversing of the salary cap and collective-bargaining agreement. A mostoften-heard phrase in the Heat front office: “Where would we be without Andy?”
4. Lewis Schaffel/Billy Cunningham
The Brooklyn natives and longtime friends had the vision of operating their own team, not as an employees, as Schaffel had been with Jazz, Hawks and Nets, not as Cunningham had been as coach of the 76ers after a successful playing career. Expansion was coming in 1988 and South Florida was in the running. Their basketball acumen got the Heat to the playoffs by the franchise’s fourth season, acquiring assets such as Glen Rice, Matt Geiger and Khalid Reeves that Riley would flip for Mourning upon his arrival. 3. Ted Arison/Zev Bufman It was the initial civic partnership of the two, going back to 1986, that planted the seeds for the franchise. Arison, owner of Carnival Cruise Lines, arrived when needed as the financial backbone. Bufman, the theatrical impresario, utilized his South Florida connections to help lay the groundwork for what would become Miami Arena. It was their ties to the community that allowed NBA insiders Schaffel and Cunningham to make their NBA dream a South Florida dream. 2. Micky Arison What the initial management structure lacked was what Micky Arison delivered on Feb. 13, 1995, when the Arison family solidified their control of the franchise. Unlike his father, Ted, Micky Arison had a basketball passion and a corporate understanding of the need for singular, respected NBA leadership at the top. Less than six months after taking over, he named Riley team president and head coach. Heat Culture was born. 1. Pat Riley The price was considered steep at the time, the Heat on Sept. 1, 1995 sending a first-round pick and $1 million in order to hire Riley away from the New York Knicks. The next day Riley assumed leadership of a franchise that would go on to win three NBA championships over these ensuing 22 seasons, the Heat missing the playoffs only five times in that span. Only the Spurs and Lakers have won more games since Riley’s arrival. Along the way he stood as the face for the campaign to build American-Airlines Arena.