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Heat NBA champion Norris Cole embracing opportunity to step into team’s coaching pipeline
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- Heat NBA champion Norris Cole embracing opportunity to step into team’s coaching pipeline
MIAMI — He is 37, the Kid 'N Play hair is long gone, and it has been 11 years since he last appeared in a Miami Heat uniform.
But, yes, that was Norris Cole last week at Heat training camp at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton.
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The feisty guard who got to experience the final three seasons of the Big Three era with LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh and shared in Heat championships in 2012 and '13, is back.
Sort of.
Starting from the bottom.
Albeit, at the top of the map.
Having pushed for years to get into coaching with the Heat, Cole last month was named an assistant coach for the Heat's G League affiliate, the Sioux Falls Skyforce, as in Sioux Falls, S.D.
No, not part of Erik Spoelstra's Heat staff, but availed the opportunity to work with the Heat roster during the preseason and then with Heat prospects this season in the G League.
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"Basketball, you know, it's a funny sport," Cole said during a break at last week's training camp. "You never know what part of the game is going to change your life or impact your life. I've always known the player side. But as I got older, I wanted to stay involved in the game. And even though I still felt that I could play, I felt that my value was starting to be higher in my voice and giving out information.
"And so I had been talking to Spo for a couple years now, maybe about four years, about this day coming. And he had helped me with some clarity."
In that regard, Cole is the latest former Heat player to play for Spoelstra and then move into a coaching role with the team. Such is the case with current Heat assistants Chris Quinn, Caron Butler, Malik Allen and Wayne Ellington.
"Now is just the right time to do it," Cole said. "It's the right time."
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Spoelstra agrees.
"He and I have been talking probably at least three years," said Spoelstra, with the Heat holding their annual Red, White & Pink Game intrasquad benefit scrimmage Tuesday night at Kaseya Center. "Every offseason, he's reached out to me asking. Initially, it was just about coaching and what that looks like. He expressed some interest in it. He just wanted to know more about it. Those were conversations that I just kept in my pocket.
"Each offseason, it's a follow-up check-in — if you still want to play or if you're ever thinking about this. Each year, it's been a little bit more of his desire to take that step."
For many, it is a difficult step. Just this past season, Cole completed a successful run in Uruguay.
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"I've been all over the world," he said, with his post-NBA career including playing stops in Israel, Italy, Montenegro, Monaco, France, Spain, Egypt, Puerto Rico and then Uruguay.
"I've still been playing," he said, last in the NBA in 2016-17 with the Oklahoma City Thunder. "I played 14 years pro. Just earlier this year, I won a championship in South America."
And then he recognized it was time to move on, just as he had moved on from the high-top fade made famous in the '90s by rapper Christopher "Kid" Reid.
"Married with kids now, which is obviously different from when I played for the Heat," he said with a smile.
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And, now, this next step.
"I've still been around the game," he said of his mentorship programs. "I just haven't necessarily been around the NBA that much. But I've always kept in contact with the Heat. I still would come to games when I was in town. So I've been affiliated from afar."
All with Spoelstra taking measure, having brought back many into coaching from his Heat rosters over the years, also including Anthony Carter and Juwan Howard,
"I think he's built for it," Spoelstra said of this next step by Cole. "He really has a great way about him. He's about all the right things — the work ethic, the competitiveness, the attention to detail that he has as a player, I think that translates to coaching. He's really served this player leadership and mentorship role.
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"I think it's a great fit. And he's willing to go to Sioux Falls. That's the ultimate test. A lot of guys have reached out over the years. They want to get in coaching but that's really the pipeline. We'll start there and then we'll see what happens."
Which is all that Cole asked.
"Nothing can replace the feeling of getting out there and competing, because that's what I am at heart," Cole said. 'I'm a competitor. I'm a player at the end of the day. That's been the hardest part.
"But the information from playing, the relationships, the camaraderie, I still have that as a coach. Being around, being in the locker room, still being active, our organization, the coaches still work out. So the only part that I'm missing is the playing part."
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Cole said the Sioux Falls part is not daunting because of his basketball roots, having started his climb to the No. 28 pick in the 2011 draft by playing at Cleveland State.
"If you know my career," he said, "I never really had the easy route. I went to Cleveland State. I had one scholarship offer, to Cleveland State. And Cleveland State is not Duke. So I made it like my Duke. I went there and I embraced it. I love it. It's my favorite university.
"But I'm not afraid to work my way up. Because when you earn it, when you do well after you earn something, it feels that much more gratifying. So I'm not afraid of earning my position."
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Since his NBA time, Cole stepped back to play in the G League, as a mentor, just as he did with the USA Basketball program.
"I know it's not a knock on me going to the G League. It's not like a disrespectful thing. So I never looked at it as a disrespectful thing," he said. "You got to be humble sometimes.
"I didn't walk right to the NBA right out of high school. I had to work my way up.
So the same thing applies here."
Being back with the Heat has meant being back at Kaseya Center, again with the opportunity to walk the backstage hall of Championship Alley, where he is among those featuring in the Heat's championship murals.
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"You never forget about those times," he said. "And it also gives you motivation to get back to that feeling. So that's exactly it. When I walk through the halls, I feel the emotions of the memories of walking through those halls, celebrating.
"The wins, the losses, all the battles. That's what I think about. That's exactly what I think about."
