Miami Heat coach Erik Spoelstra is a big fan of ‘The Kentucky Way’

The Miami Heat are full of Kentucky Wildcats. Everywhere you look, there is a part of BBN down in South Beach. From Pat Riley, to Bam Adebayo, and to Tyler Herro, BBN is represented strong in Miami.

Pat Riley might have a little do with that, but also Heat head coach Erik Spoelstra is a fan of what John Calipari has done in his time in Lexington.

Spoelstra sang the praises of Kentucky and Coach Cal during a recent interview with SiriusXM NBA Radio:

“We love what Cal does,” Spoelstra stated. “I’ve been up there a few times, just to see how he does his program. We like talking shop and everything. But he’s going to coach you hard. They’re going to spend a lot of time with player development. They’re not going to treat you with kid gloves because of whatever you were ranked in high school.”

Kentucky, obviously, produced Heat All-Star Bam Adebayo, who did make his first All-Star game this past season, as well as taking home the Skills Competition trophy. Spoelstra spoke more on Bam:

“I loved the fact that he played a role at Kentucky,” Spoelstra added. “I mentioned that when I first met with him. He said he was capable of more, but he loved being in that program, loved being developed by that coaching staff of Cal, Kenny Payne, But he had no problem playing that role. I like that fact that he was just willing to play defense, to rebound, to set screens and do that kind of thing and be okay with that.”

It’s safe to say that we could be seeing many more current and future Wildcats being taken by Miami, you can credit Pat Riley for that, but Spoelstra seems all-in on the Lexington-Miami pipeline.