Dan Craig moving on from Heat to become Clippers assistant coach. What it means for Heat

The Miami Heat’s coaching staff will look different next season.

After spending 17 years with the Heat, Dan Craig is moving on to become a Los Angeles Clippers assistant coach on Tyronn Lue’s staff, a league source confirmed to the Miami Herald.

The source added the Clippers offered more money and the hope is working as an assistant in one of the NBA’s biggest markets on a team with championship expectations will serve as a pathway to an eventual opportunity for Craig to become a head coach.

The move has not been officially announced by either the Clippers or Heat.

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With Craig’s departure, Heat head coach Erik Spoelstra is left with a staff that includes assistant coaches Malik Allen, Chris Quinn (also director of player development) and Octavio De La Grana (also a player development coach), player development coach Anthony Carter and shooting coach/player development coach Rob Fodor.

Three candidates who could emerge as options to fill Craig’s job as a Heat assistant coach are Carter, Eric Glass and Phil Weber. Carter is already on Miami’s staff, Glass spent this past season as the head coach of the Heat’s G League affiliate (the Sioux Falls Skyforce) after spending the previous two seasons as video coordinator/player development coach for the Heat, and Weber previously served as the Skyforce’s head coach for the 2014-15 season after working as a consultant for the Heat.

Glass coached the Heat’s summer league team in 2018 and 2019; there was no summer league this year because of COVID-19.

It’s also possible the Heat could approach veteran forward Udonis Haslem about a coaching position, but it’s unclear whether he would have interest. Haslem has not decided whether he will retire or return for an 18th NBA season with the Heat.

Craig was linked to several head coaching vacancies this offseason, including the Indiana Pacers opening that went to Toronto Raptors assistant Nate Bjorkgren.

Craig, 38, spent the past four seasons as a Heat assistant on Spoelstra’s staff after spending the 2015-16 season as the head coach of the Skyforce. In Craig’s lone season as the Skyforce’s coach, he was named the NBA G League Coach of the Year and led the team to its first NBA G League title in franchise history.

Craig, a Massachusetts native, began his Heat career as a video intern in 2003-04. He was named assistant video coordinator in 2004-05 and two years later was promoted to video coordinator, a role he served for five seasons before being elevated to video coordinator/player development coach prior to the 2011-12 season.

The following season, Craig was named assistant coach/video coordinator and then in 2013-14, he was promoted to assistant coach/player development. During the 2014-15 season, he served as assistant coach/director of player development for the Heat before coaching in the G League for one season and then returning to serve as one of Spoelstra’s assistant coaches for the past four seasons.

Craig filled in as the Heat’s head coach for the only two games Spoelstra has missed in his 12 seasons at the helm. The first game was when Spoelstra’s first child, Santiago, was born (an overtime road loss to the Indiana Pacers in March 2018) and the second came when Spoelstra’s second child, Dante, was born (a road loss to the Boston Celtics in Dec. 2019).

It’s the second consecutive offseason that Spoelstra has lost one of his lead assistants.

Juwan Howard left the Heat to lead his alma mater and become the University of Michigan’s head coach last year. Allen was hired by Miami to fill the spot Howard left behind on Spoelstra’s staff.