The Miami Heat are on their way out of the playoffs and this could mean the end to the current Heat team that we know and love, being led by guys like Goran Dragic and Hassan Whiteside.
The situation in South Beach for the Miami Heat is about as bad as you think it is, or as good if tanking is your thing. Regardless of the way you approach the situation, the playoffs seem to be the farthest thing from that equation. Coming off a third straight loss, with the latest to the league-worst Suns, some changes should be made.
Not Pat Riley of course, as noted in his highly publicized interviews recently. Definitely not Erik Spoelstra, but that hasn’t ever been a real thing, and especially with Riley still at the helm. This change should have occurred some time ago and that’s replacing Hassan Whiteside in the starting lineup with Bam Adebayo.
Bam presents a more athletic and mobile option. He moves with effortless fluidity, rather than the stumble and bumble of Whiteside. Whiteside can be effective at times, but Adebayo better fits the “pace and space” nature of the league right now.
When looking at a few of the analytics between the two, that tells a story worth telling as well. The per 36 stats, which simulate production of players over the same amount of court time, actually shows that Bam’s production is about the same as Whiteside.
This is pretty outstanding considering Adebayo’s actual court time is much less than Whiteside’s, meaning he does more with less. It’s safe to say that if he were the starter, which would come with more court time, he could surpass the production of Hassan as the starter.
Bam is the present and the future. The Heat should be looking to move on from what has been the Whiteside error in a quick fashion. With his contract being practically un-tradeable they must look to do so anyway in the off-season, if not considering the “stretch provision”. This would be best for the greater good of team chemistry and as a whole.
The Heat need changes, and as the great Poet Tupac Shakur once said, that’s just the way it is.