Pinoy Pride: Fil-Am Spoelstra Named as Heat Head Coach

Erik Celino Spoelstra was named as the new head coach of Miami Heat after Pat Riley stepped down. I’m not really familiar with this Spoelstra and I was thrilled to find out that he’s a Filipino-American. Spoelstra’s mother hails from San Pablo, Laguna and his father is a Dutch-Irish. He has been to the Philippines only once.

Spoelstra originally joined the Miami Heat organization as a video tape coordinator in 1995. He also helped the team in individual player training taking credit for honing Dwyane Wade’s shooting.

At 37 years old, Spoelstra is the youngest NBA head coach today. He is 69 days younger than second youngest head coach, Lawrence Frank of the New Jersey Nets.

After spending 13 seasons with the Heat organization, Spoelstra finally climbed up the ladder and got his chance to call the shots for the Heat.

If my memory serves me right, I think Erik Spoelstra is the first and only Fil-Am who became a head coach for an NBA team. Kudos to the man. Congratulations and good luck to Erik Spoelstra for his tenure as the Miami Heat head coach.

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The Turk Wins the Most Improved Player Award

Hedo Turkoglu’s great improvements across the stat lines have paid off after winning the Most Improved Player Award this season. Turkoglu averaged 19 points, 5 rebounds and 5 assists this season and was one of the key players responsible for the recent success of the Orlando Magic.

Turkoglu’s stat lines this season marked career highs in each category. Last season, he averaged 13 points, 4 rebounds and 3 assists.

The eight-year veteran is a major factor in Magic’s recent success. This season, he developed a clutch game that led to a couple of game winning baskets during the regular season. The 6-10 forward missed the All-Star game in February and many fans believed that he was snubbed out of the Eastern team.

Turkoglu was named back-to-back Eastern Conference player of the week in late January and early February and earned the player of the month award in April.

“I guess this year was the time for me to step it up and come this far, so I am just blessed that I was healthy this year and all the things went well for me, having a good coach, my teammates, everybody. If you look at it, it is not just my improvement, it is the Magic’s improvement too, comparing to last year.” Hedo Turkoglu said after receiving the award.

Hedo Turkoglu got 380 points in the voting and edged Rudy Gay and LaMarcus Aldridge who earned 167 and 128 points respectively.

Other notes:

The Orlando Magic are headed to the second round of the playoffs after they defeated the Toronto Raptors 102-92. Dwight Howard had a monster game and posted his third 20-20 game of the series. Hedo Turkoglu missed a triple-double after posting 12 points, 8 rebounds and 9 assists.

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Read to Achieve:

The starting five:

Empty the Bench: The AK-47 is locked and loaded.

REDSARMY.COM: Bibby angers the people behind RedsArmy.

With Malice: Some useful NBA Crap With Malice.

the Association: Check out what happens to the Spurs when Duncan speaks.

le basketbawl: Take a Quick Look at the NBA playoffs and some useful stats.

The sixth man:

Yahoo! Sports: The Goofball Tactics of Pistons.