There are distinct similarities in Mike McDaniel taking over as coach of the Miami Dolphins to when Erik Spoelstra first took the reins of the Miami Heat.
Spoelstra turned 38 mere days after his first game as a head coach in the 2008-09 opener. McDaniel turns 39 on Sunday and was hired at 38.
The two spent years working their way up from the bottom of organizations. Spoelstra got into the door with the Heat as a video coordinator in 1995 before a lengthy tenure as assistant coach that led him to become the successor to Pat Riley in 2008. McDaniel had his first NFL job as an unpaid internship with his hometown Denver Broncos before earning various offensive assistant roles with different teams, becoming San Francisco 49ers offensive coordinator in 2021 and now landing with the Dolphins.
But then there are the differences in the recent history of the franchises as they take the head role. Sure, Spoelstra took over the Heat after a dreadful 15-67 season, but the organizational foundation was there from Riley, he had superstar Dwyane Wade and the Heat won the NBA Finals two years earlier in 2006. McDaniel is taking over a team that hasn’t had a playoff win since the 2000 postseason.
If McDaniel can come close to Spoelstra’s success — with two rings and another as an assistant, plus 734 career regular and postseason NBA wins entering Saturday night’s game against the Philadelphia 76ers — he will be a hero in Miami for returning the Dolphins to relevance.
McDaniel, before spending this past week in Indianapolis for the NFL scouting combine, took in a Heat game on Feb. 26, a 133-129 win over the San Antonio Spurs. He was able to get a courtside view of Spoelstra managing a game, and if McDaniel wants to cross sports with coaching techniques, he may have picked up a few things from the patented “Heat Culture” under Spoelstra.
“It was impressive how composed he was,” McDaniel said on what he observed from FTX Arena in a conversation with the South Florida Sun Sentinel from the combine. “It was interesting when he chose to get up. You can tell he was a defensive-minded coach because that’s where a lot of his juice comes, is when we’re on defense.
“Between timeouts and his presence, he gives his players time to conduct themselves in timeouts. You can tell he works with his assistant coaches well, and the kind of talk that doesn’t get too high or too low. And then, when he goes in the huddle, everybody’s chatter stops, so you can tell that he commands their respect. All little things. … I think it’s interesting to watch coaches in other sports, how they conduct stuff, and I’ve obviously followed him from afar [before last weekend’s outing].”
Spoelstra wasn’t the only thing that impressed McDaniel. He found Heat fans to be savvy and committed to their team.
“The NBA season, there’s like 41 home games and it wasn’t a marquee matchup, but it was fully attended and the basketball fans knew what was going on — in terms of, there was a momentum [push from the Spurs and] they didn’t get freaked out,” McDaniel recalled.
The Heat trailed by 16 in the first quarter against a Spurs team that was sitting three of its top four scorers and playing on the road for a second consecutive night after two overtimes in Washington.
“The Heat team, I was sitting right next to the bench, and you can tell they were not panicked,” McDaniel said. “And the fans were like that too. So, I did take an element of that only happens when you’re just like, ‘This is something that happens. We’ll make our run.’ And sure enough, by halftime, it was a one-score game. So, I did take in this was a winning atmosphere.”
It was different from the hoops environment McDaniel was accustomed to with his hometown Denver Nuggets before they became a consistent contender with reigning MVP Nikola Jokic.
“You’re getting boos. You’re getting people losing your minds and the random yell,” McDaniel said, comically imitating a noise a random fan in the distance of a crowd might make. “There was some composure there that I think you can attest to a winning franchise, so I felt that. I felt it from the players too. They were pretty unflappable.”
McDaniel, who has not yet gotten to formally meet Spoelstra with the two coaches extremely busy these days, said he has become a Heat fan, a sentiment he also backed up on his Friday appearance on the Pat McAfee Show.
The visit to the Heat’s house was one of the few things McDaniel has been able to go out and do since arriving in Miami. He’s been working long hours putting together his coaching staff and preparing for free agency in the coming weeks and the late April draft. McDaniel has been on extended stays at two different hotels before getting settled into the area.
Beyond South Florida sports fans at a Heat game, McDaniel has gotten a sense for the pulse of the fan base between instances where he’s recognized in the hotel lobby and one dinner where he said he was approached by about 10 different season-ticket holders.
“I had no idea coming into this place how passionate South Floridians were about football,” McDaniel said. “I just assumed, ‘Wow, there’s a lot of stuff going on. Maybe it’s like LA.’ “
But McDaniel has learned Miami is “totally different” from Los Angeles. And after losing to LA’s eventual Super Bowl-champion Rams in the NFC Championship Game, McDaniel said he’s grinding his teeth until he can get another shot at the Rams with the Dolphins. Miami is scheduled to play at the same SoFi Stadium against the Chargers this fall, though.
His first time courtside at an NBA game, McDaniel also got a sense for the on-court persona of players he watches on TV.
“I found out Kyle Lowry was hilarious. Had no idea about that,” he said. “Just how he talks to his teammates and the refs and stuff. I never sat courtside in my life, so I was totally fanned out. My wife is trying to talk to me, and it was a terrible conversation because I was just locked in, adjusting to the game courtside. That was really cool to be a part of.”
Learning of the 22-year playoff win drought was something McDaniel felt didn’t connect given the passion he’s seen from the Dolphins fan base, and he feels Miami fans deserve a winner.
