Spoelstra excited by new-look Heat’s potential

MIAMI — Klay Thompson didn’t sleep particularly well before his first training camp practice with the Miami Heat. It wasn’t nerves, wasn’t a bad hotel room, wasn’t anything like that. The problem was Erik Spoelstra. And it was a good problem to have. The Miami coach — entering his 19th season with the Heat, by far the longest current tenure of any coach in the NBA — always addresses his team on the night before the start of camp. And what Spoelstra said in this season’s kickoff speech had Thompson so fired up that getting rest proved difficult, if not impossible. “He cares,” Thompson said. “And it’s good to be around a head coach who doesn’t mind to kind of get into you. He respects your work, but he also wants to get the most out of you. And he doesn’t believe in ‘you’re past your prime’ or ‘your best years are behind you.’ He believes that you can still be effective at any stage you want — as long as you’re willing to work.” That part, the commitment to the work, never changes. But a run to the NBA Finals in 2023 was followed up by first-round exits in 2024 and 2025. And last...