DALLAS — Rob Fodor, the Miami Heat’s shooting and player development coach for the past decade, is joining the Dallas Mavericks as an assistant coach and shooting coach, the team announced Tuesday.
Fodor is one of seven assistants on first-year head coach Dusty May’s staff for the 2026-27 season. Willie Green will serve as May’s lead assistant. Garrett Temple, Joe Boylan, Drew Williamson, Mody Maor, and Sam Hershberger fill out the assistant group, and Nate Mitchell will also coach the Texas Legends.
Fodor was the first full-time shooting coach in Heat history. Miami recorded the seven highest single-season 3-point totals in franchise history during his tenure.
Duncan Robinson Credits Rob Fodor With Speeding Up His Release
Duncan Robinson went undrafted out of Michigan in 2018 and signed with Miami’s summer league team. In 2019-20, he set a Heat single-season record with 270 made 3-pointers and shot 44.6% from deep.
Former NBA forward Brian Scalabrine asked Robinson how he sped up his shot release during a conversation posted to YouTube.
“It’s just kind of like the daily vitamins,” Robinson said. “I give a ton of credit to our shooting coach in Miami, Rob Fodor. He’s kind of like a mad scientist when it comes to shooting.”
“I’ve never seen in my entire career,” Robinson continued. “I’ve seen people that are able to advise shooting and make little adjustments, but he’s able to watch somebody and in live time be able to pick out exactly what it is that’s hindering their motion. For us we call them little ‘isms.’ I have little things, if I start missing shots, that I start to fall back and resort to, and it’s changing those and correcting those that he’s helped me with a ton.”
“I always kind of had it, but it’s just about being able to repeat your best version every time,” Robinson added. “And then be able to repeat it after the demands of getting open, which is the hardest thing in my opinion to do in the NBA.”
During the 2018-19 season, Fodor and Chris Quinn, then Miami’s director of player development, watched Robinson as he shuttled between the Heat and their G League affiliate in Sioux Falls, ESPN reported in September 2020. At one game they attended, Robinson did not chase loose balls the way the Heat expected.
“We saw a couple things that bothered us,” Fodor said. “So we kind of invented some fun drills for him.”
Fodor and Quinn’s favorite had Robinson sitting under the basket, facing the baseline so he could not see where they threw the loose balls. He had to dive for each one as it came into his peripheral vision, then slap it back inbounds.
“We were trying to get him to understand his life in the NBA was not going to be stationary,” Fodor explained. “And that he had to be able to play absolutely full speed all the time.”
Fodor worked remotely during the 2021-22 season, mostly through Zoom sessions, the Miami Herald reported in October 2022. Robinson had signed a five-year, $90 million contract the summer before that season. He lost his starting job in late March 2022. Fodor was back with the team for the 2022-23 season.
“Rob and I have a great relationship,” Robinson explained. “He always has my best interests, always looks out for me. We put in a lot of work this summer. I’m always tweaking and changing little stuff here and there.”
Miami sent Robinson to the Detroit Pistons in a sign-and-trade in July 2025. He signed a three-year contract as part of the deal.
Rob Fodor Brings Hillsdale, ABA, And WNBA Background To Dallas Mavericks
Fodor is a Detroit native. He started all four years at Division II Hillsdale College in Michigan and still holds the school record for career assists. He majored in history and minored in psychology and physical education.
His playing career ended when he broke his hand in a Detroit pro league game. His contract was canceled. Fodor did not touch a basketball for seven years after that.
In 2003, Fodor met Heat coach Erik Spoelstra, who was then a Miami assistant. The Heat bio says the two worked together on camps and player development over the years before Fodor joined the staff.
Fodor has worked as a personal shooting instructor for former Heat players Tim Hardaway, Alonzo Mourning, Jim Jackson, and Mike James. Dallas drafted Jackson fourth overall in 1992.
By 2005, Fodor was coaching in the ABA with the now-defunct Florida Pit Bulls under Hardaway. He has also coached or taught shooting in Norway, Germany, Spain, Singapore, and Slovenia.
Fodor joined the Seattle Storm as an assistant coach in 2015. Miami hired him the following September.
In December 2016, the Heat were shooting a league-worst 66.5% from the free-throw line. Spoelstra said at the time that each player had a plan under Fodor and that no two plans were cookie-cutter, the Sun Sentinel reported. Golf Digest later published what Spoelstra told reporters when Miami made the hire.
“As talented as anybody I’ve ever seen in that space, a really unique basketball mind,” Spoelstra said. “I’ve known Rob for going back to when I was an assistant coach working with [former Heat guard] Mike James. That’s how I got to know Rob.”
“And he worked with Mike, and Mike was the player I was in charge of developing, so I had to figure who he was spending his evenings with,” Spoelstra noted. “And I was really impressed with that work.”
Jaime Jaquez Jr., the 18th overall pick in 2023, was working on his shot with Fodor in April 2025. A week after scoring a career-high 41 points in Miami’s regular-season finale, Jaquez was back on the bench for the Heat’s two play-in games, Ira Winderman of the Sun Sentinel reported.
“We get up a lot of shots,” Jaquez said. “I think one of the things with me is technique, my hand placement, getting my elbow where it needs to be, and my release, just get it out early. Those are the kinds of the things we talk about frequently.”
In September 2022, Fodor appeared on The Basketball Podcast with host Chris Oliver, in an episode covering the decision to shoot, variability within shooting, and energy transfer.
“I was trying to speed the brain up, get the brain to move ahead of the game,” Fodor said. “And that’s how the game slows down … your brain is able to start processing things quickly enough to where your decisions are made much more quickly.”
Dallas opens its preseason against the Houston Rockets on Oct. 9 at The Venetian Arena in Macao. The teams play there again Oct. 11.
