Are undefined roles stunting the Miami Heat’s growth?
It’s time for head coach Erik Spoelstra to draw the line with the Miami Heat roster.
Is the Miami Heat roster good enough to make the playoffs? Are 12 potential rotation players too much to squeeze onto the floor?
Those are the types of questions that became too late to ask once the team passed the NBA trade deadline by relying on sentimental moves.
Bringing Dwyane Wade home for a victory lap gave energy to the city, but the last time anyone checked, the Heat lost eight of their last 10 games—including three of the last five with their returning star.
Wade was supposed to be the Heat’s fourth quarter savior. The one who finished off what everyone else started. And he showed flashes of that two nights ago, in their overtime battle against the New Orleans Pelicans. Yet, it was not enough to stop Miami from dropping their sixth game by two points or less.
The simple excuse would be to blame the lack of chemistry for the continued mishaps, however many of the problems are ones that have plagued the Heat all season.
It starts with head coach Erik Spoelstra’s awkward relationship with Hassan Whiteside.
Whether the big man is rolling or disengaged, he seems to find himself sitting at the end of the bench to finish games. No one complains when Kelly Olynyk or Bam Adebayo contribute to pulling out wins, but what about the contests where leads dwindle due to a lack of rebounds while Whiteside’s 11.9 per game are parked?
The same goes for running game-ending lobs to a 3-point shooter like Wayne Ellington and not knowing when to reinsert Goran Dragic.
Still, the biggest dilemma that coach Spoelstra will need to solve is tightening the reins on Wade. The Sun-Sentinel’s Ira Winderman points out how the legend’s play took him by surprise:
"“Not going to lie, had to do a double-take when I saw Wade took 20 shots Friday night, which was his high for the season…. This transition still is a work in progress, but Wade as a decoy can be a boost, as well.”"
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Wade as a decoy in the crunch could come in handy.
After all, his fourth quarter stats are not the best since he has been back. For one, he is averaging 3.2 points per game on 36.8 percent shooting with 0.6 assists in the game’s final stanza. This does not even include contributing 3.0 turnovers a game, as a whole.
Wade is not the reason for their losses, however his reemergence has, at times, looked like a hindrance to Josh Richardson’s game.
Richardson averaged 20.3 points per game in his four performances before the trade deadline. His next five have seen him drop to averaging 12.2 and looking like the man that was dubbed Rook No. 2 in his first year. It is as if he finds himself watching or deferring to Wade again, instead of being the guy who took pride in trying to carve out his corner, as the Heat’s best two-way player.
Earlier in the season, the eye test defied Richardson’s numbers. As the season progressed, they both began to line up. Now things are starting to slow down and it is on coach Spoelstra to make sure that Wade is complimenting and not overshadowing the one star that they have in the making.
Next: Miami Heat: What will happen to rotations moving forward?
If not, the Heat could drop the confidence of another up-and-comer (besides Whiteside), along with enough games to knock them out of the playoff race.