MIAMI — It's not in Erik Spolestra's contract, but he has an unspoken agreement with the Miami Heat. For one week every summer, without fail, he gets to attend a family reunion in Hawaii.

On this year's trip, he found a new obsession: Paddleboarding.

For two, three, sometimes four hours a day, the rookie Heat coach would climb atop something resembling a surfboard in the shimmering blue water, removed from his cell phone and BlackBerry and distractions that pop up in the real world. He was alone, letting his mind wander wherever it wanted, drifting along in paradise.

And then — bang! — an idea for the coming Heat season would hit him like a whitecapped wave.

With that, he'd start paddling as fast as possible, desperate to reach dry land so he could jot down his latest notion before it floated away.

"I'd find myself thinking about a little bit of everything," Spoelstra said. "Sometimes I'd go out in the morning, just to clear my head, and other times I'd have a million thoughts of what I wanted to do with the team."

Some who best know the 37-year-old who'll open his first training camp as an NBA head coach on Saturday hear that story and nod knowingly.

That's Spo, they say. Always working, always thinking, always planning.

But is he really ready to inherit a team that needed only two years to plummet from being the league's best to being the league's worst?

Pat Riley, the person Spoelstra is replacing on the Heat bench is certain of it. And inside the franchise's offices, that's the opinion which matters most.

"If I had a training camp looming right now, I'd be crazy," said Riley, who retired for the second and presumably final time after Miami finished 15-67 last season and then tabbed Spoelstra to be the new Heat coach. "I always got crazy just before training camp, with preparations and practice plans and master plans. God, it's a big relief. I see Erik doing it now. Erik's in there every day, grinding it, getting ready, getting prepared."

Riley, inducted into the Hall of Fame earlier this month, summoned Spoelstra for a talk about a week after last season ended. It was widely assumed within the organization that, when Riley retired, he would do what he did when stepping aside in 2003 and tap one of his assistants as his replacement. Back then, the only choice was Stan Van Gundy. This time, the only choice was Spoelstra.

They chatted for three hours, a quasi-interview of sorts, and Riley and owner Micky Arison quickly moved forward in putting Spoelstra in charge. The decision was discussed with a handful of players as well, 2006 NBA finals MVP and Olympic gold medalist Dwyane Wade foremost on that list.

"I believe in coach Spo," Wade said when the hiring was announced, "and have complete confidence that our team will succeed with him at the helm."

From that day in late April, Spoelstra crisscrossed the country, meeting with players and laying the groundwork for the coming year. He went to Chicago to see Wade and Shawn Marion. Went to Las Vegas to talk hoops with Mike Krzyzewski before Team USA headed to Beijing for the Olympics. He spent probably as much time in the Heat offices as anyone over the summer, drawing plays and mapping strategies.

He has his own set of ideas.

But after 13 years in the Heat organization — which was, and still will be, overseen by Riley — Spoelstra has no designs on revamping the franchise's culture.

"That will never change," Spoelstra said.

Really, not much around the Heat will change, at least from an organizational setup.

Spoelstra made a couple additions to the coaching staff, but mainstay assistants Ron Rothstein, Bob McAdoo and Keith Askins all remain. He already oversaw the video crew as an assistant, so there's familiarity there. The team of scouts will essentially all have the same duties. And Riley with his 1,210 wins and seven NBA championship rings will be around, just in case Spoelstra needs any help.

By now, though, Spoelstra knows how the Heat handles their business.

He was a standout high school guard in Oregon, then played at the University of Portland, where he was the West Coast Conference's freshman of the year. Eventually, he got hired by the Heat 13 years ago, working in their video room — "I didn't know who he was his first three years here," Riley said — and now has worked his way atop the team's ladder.

Spoelstra will assemble the team for the first time Friday, then hit the floor with the club for the first time Saturday morning. The team will have a new look; Shaquille O'Neal was traded to Phoenix in the latter part of last season, Alonzo Mourning won't be in camp because of a knee injury that may or may not allow him to return at some point this season, and point guard Jason Williams — another of the mainstays from the 2006 NBA championship team — is gone as well.

But in terms of philosophy, structure and discipline — the Riley mainstays — nothing will have changed, no matter what ideas Spoelstra came up with on that paddleboard off the coast of Maui this summer.

"Some things, maybe because of who we have on the team, will be different," Spoelstra said. "But I'm still out of that mold. It's the way I think. It's a little bit old-school, but I believe in that stuff like hard work and discipline and defense, with a new-school approach."