{"id":714460,"date":"2026-04-20T07:23:03","date_gmt":"2026-04-20T07:23:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/714460\/"},"modified":"2026-04-20T07:23:03","modified_gmt":"2026-04-20T07:23:03","slug":"erik-spoelstras-ex-wife-responded-to-gold-digger-claims","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/714460\/","title":{"rendered":"Erik Spoelstra’s Ex-Wife Responded To ‘Gold Digger’ Claims"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Miami Heat had a tough finish to the 2025-26 NBA<\/a> regular season.<\/p>\n

The Heat fell to the Hornets, 127-126, in overtime of the NBA play-in game earlier this week. The tough overtime loss ended Miami’s season. The Heat finished the year at 43-39 on the season.<\/p>\n

Erik Spoelstra, 55, has been Miami’s head coach since 2008. He’s won two NBA championships. This season, the Heat missed the playoffs for the first time since 2019.<\/p>\n

The future Hall of Fame head coach is one of the highest-paid head coaches in the league.<\/p>\n

\"MIAMI,<\/p>\n

MIAMI, FL – NOVEMBER 19: Erik Spoelstra and Nikki Sapp of the Miami Heat participates in the Annual Thanksgiving Celebration on November 19, 2019 at the Miami Rescue Mission in Miami Florida. (Photo by Issac Baldizon\/NBAE via Getty Images)Issac Baldizon&sol;Getty Images<\/p>\n

Spoelstra signed an eight year, $120 million contract extension with the Eastern Conference franchise back in 2024.<\/p>\n

The extension was signed shortly after his divorce was finalized.<\/p>\n

News of the contract extension quickly led to speculation about the divorce on social media. However, Spoelstra’s ex-wife, former Heat team dancer Nikki Sapp, sounded off on the rumors.<\/p>\n

Spoelstra’s ex-wife claps back at critics<\/p>\n

Spoelstra made it clear that she was no “gold digger.”<\/p>\n

“People are very quick to label women gold diggers. Like: ‘Oh, if she is with a successful person, she must be in it for the money,'”\u00a0the 37-year-old\u00a0told<\/a>\u00a0the Miami Herald in 2025, per Basketball Network.<\/a><\/p>\n

“Do you really think that’s all a husband brings to the table? In the end, no one really knows what happened.”<\/p>\n

She has since moved on, though she continues to call out the haters.<\/p>\n

“It’s one thing for you sports fanatics to come onto my page after I made a really big life choice and talk crazy and it’s another thing entirely for you to come to my page and harass me and call me crazy names over something \u2014 a rumor, a (expletive) story that is 100 percent flat-out not true,”\u00a0Nikki said on Instagram.<\/p>\n

Good for her for speaking out.<\/p>\n

This story was originally published by The Spun<\/a> on Apr 20, 2026, where it first appeared in the NBA<\/a> section. Add The Spun as a Preferred Source by clicking here.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Miami Heat had a tough finish to the 2025-26 NBA regular season. The Heat fell to the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":714461,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3778],"tags":[7,1200,144,295,189,89057,3881,6,13051,1176],"class_list":{"0":"post-714460","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-miami-heat","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-erik-spoelstra","10":"tag-heat","11":"tag-miami","12":"tag-miami-heat","13":"tag-miami-rescue-mission","14":"tag-miamiheat","15":"tag-nba","16":"tag-nikki-sapp","17":"tag-the-heat"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116435844233040689","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/714460","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=714460"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/714460\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/714461"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=714460"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=714460"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=714460"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}