{"id":79535,"date":"2024-05-30T16:27:06","date_gmt":"2024-05-30T20:27:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=79535"},"modified":"2024-05-30T16:27:06","modified_gmt":"2024-05-30T20:27:06","slug":"top-miami-heat-assistant-has-head-coaching-future-in-his-sights","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2024\/05\/30\/top-miami-heat-assistant-has-head-coaching-future-in-his-sights\/","title":{"rendered":"Top Miami Heat Assistant Has Head Coaching Future In His Sights"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Miami Heat assistant coaches are making contract noise, but there is one who&#8217;s also making future head coaching noise.<\/p>\n<h2>Top Miami Heat Assistant Has Head Coaching Future In His Sights<\/h2>\n<h3>NBA&#8217;s Bright, Young Assistants Are Plenty<\/h3>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">A handful of NBA assistant coaches are making substantial contributions to their teams. Some of those names may be unfamiliar to the average NBA viewer, like Kevin Young with the Phoenix Suns or\u00a0<\/span><a class=\"editor-rtfLink\" href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/c\/cassesa01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Sam Cassell<\/span><\/a><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">\u00a0with the Boston Celtics. Even lesser-known names like\u00a0<\/span><a class=\"editor-rtfLink\" href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2024\/05\/15\/lakers-receive-permission-interview-long-list-of-candidates\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\"><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">David Adelman<\/span><\/a><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">\u00a0of the Denver Nuggets or recent Brooklyn Nets head coaching hire\u00a0<\/span><a class=\"editor-rtfLink\" href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2024\/04\/27\/jordi-fernandez-takes-big-swing-juwan-howard-coaching-hire\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\"><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Jordi Fernandez<\/span><\/a><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">, who came from the Sacramento Kings. The NBA is ripe with some of the youngest and brightest assistant coaches. One aspect they all have in common? Leading their own teams, of course. Another one of these experienced and intelligent names is Miami Heat assistant coach\u00a0<\/span><a class=\"editor-rtfLink\" href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/q\/quinnch01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Chris Quinn<\/span><\/a><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">.<\/span><\/p>\n<h3>Quinn&#8217;s NBA Start Came With the Heat<\/h3>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Quinn&#8217;s Miami Heat assistant coaching career started as a player for the Heat. Miami signed him on a partially guaranteed contract\u2014he went undrafted in 2006. After four years as a rotational player, Quinn\u2019s time as a Heat player ended in 2010. He spent time bouncing around the league before heading overseas. He played in Spain and Russia before returning to the NBA as member of the Cleveland Cavaliers in 2013.<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">It wasn\u2019t long before\u00a0<\/span><a class=\"editor-rtfLink\" href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2024\/05\/30\/lakers-nowhere-close-head-coach-hire-jj-redick-rumors\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\"><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Chris Quinn<\/span><\/a><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">\u00a0entered the coaching ranks with the same team that gave him his first playing opportunity, the Miami Heat. He reunited with the team in 2014 and coached their Summer League squad in 2017. Since then, as head coach Erik Spoelstra\u2019s top assistant, he\u2019s been on a team that has made it to the NBA Finals twice and the Eastern Conference Finals in 2022. Working alongside one of the top three NBA head coaches in the league undoubtedly has played an integral role in setting Quinn up for the attention he is receiving now as a potential head coaching candidate. Even\u00a0<\/span><a class=\"editor-rtfLink\" href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/b\/butleji01.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Jimmy Butler<\/span><\/a><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">\u00a0has Quinn\u2019s back when he <a href=\"https:\/\/www.essentiallysports.com\/nba-active-basketball-news-who-is-chris-quinn-know-one-of-the-geniuses-in-erik-spoelstra-miami-heat-coaching-staff\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">publicly stated<\/a>, \u201c<\/span>He\u2019s going to be a head coach one day very, very soon.\u201d<\/p>\n<h3><em>\u00a0<\/em>Quinn Should Continue To Be A Name In the Running For Vacancies<\/h3>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This year is not Quinn\u2019s first stab at running for open head coaching vacancies. He has previously interviewed for teams like the Indiana Pacers and the Washington Wizards. Currently, his name is linked to the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.miamiherald.com\/sports\/nba\/miami-heat\/article288506303.html\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Los Angeles Lakers<\/a> and the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sportskeeda.com\/basketball\/5-best-replacements-j-b-bickerstaff\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Cleveland Cavaliers<\/a>. Prior to hiring former Boston Celtics assistant <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2024\/05\/11\/hornets-poach-jazz-assistant-coach-lamar-skeeter\/\" target=\"_self\">Charles Lee<\/a>, the Charlotte Hornets were also looking at Quinn.<\/p>\n<h3>\u00a0Gleaning Everything He Can From the Miami Heat While He Still Can<\/h3>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">As with the aforementioned assistant coaches I alluded to earlier, Quinn&#8217;s time will come, if not this year. In the meantime, as one of the Miami Heat&#8217;s top assistants, it&#8217;s safe to assume that Quinn is content where he is now. The privilege learning from Coach Spoelstra is a gift many of the league&#8217;s assistant coaches would dream of. Not to mention, what better organization to prepare oneself under than the Miami Heat?<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Quinn&#8217;s head coaching chances <\/span><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">are aided<\/span><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\"> by his leadership role for an organization that stands mightily on its unique culture. Known as a coaching genius in his own right and Coach Spoelstra&#8217;s\u00a0<\/span><em><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Mini-Me<\/span><\/em><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">, Quinn&#8217;s leadership acumen and coaching abilities are now assuredly in the spotlight. To reiterate Jimmy Butler&#8217;s notion, Quinn will get his break; it&#8217;s just a matter of time.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Miami Heat assistant coaches are making contract noise, but there is one who&#8217;s also making future head coaching noise. Top Miami Heat Assistant Has Head Coaching Future In His Sights NBA&#8217;s Bright, Young Assistants Are Plenty A handful of NBA assistant coaches are making substantial contributions to their teams. Some of those names may be [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5081,"featured_media":79560,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1608,16,62],"tags":[49160,49173,49164,1591,583,142,49161,49163,408,419,2207],"class_list":["post-79535","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-basketball","category-heat","category-nba","tag-charles-lee","tag-chris-quinn","tag-david-adelman","tag-eastern-conference-finals","tag-erik-spoelstra","tag-jimmy-butler","tag-jordi-fernandez","tag-kevin-young","tag-nba-championship","tag-pat-riley","tag-sam-cassell"],"modified_by":"Jordan Pagkalinawan","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79535","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5081"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=79535"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79535\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/79560"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=79535"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=79535"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=79535"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}