Miami Heat: A bond and brotherhood appears to be Teeing off

The Miami Heat have only been in training camp for a few days, but there already appears to be something special brewing. The clues are right in front of us, and especially in front of the players.

The Miami Heat Culture is something of legendary proportion. While every team has a mantra, this is literally a lifestyle for players and others that are a part of the Miami Heat organization.

Whether it be the fact that the Miami Heat hold their players to higher standards, see James Johnson not being in training camp right now for “conditioning” issues, or whether it is something that you are either with or gone(see a center who know plays in Portland), it is something that means everything within the inner circle and workings of the Miami Heat organization.

Something else that is harped on by coaches and players of the organization is brotherhood. That is something that is very important to everyone there, especially Miami Heat head coach Erik Spoelstra.

He tends to believe that said comradery breeds an environment where everyone plays harder, not for themselves but for everyone else in the locker room with them. This bond is something that appears to be happening early for the newest version of this Miami Heat team, and although they aren’t quite wearing their feelings on their sleeves, they are somewhat wearing them on their chests.

https://twitter.com/miamiheat/status/1179858869700481024?s=12

In the above footage via the twitter of the official Miami Heat Twitter account, Jimmy Butler appears to be speaking with students, perhaps students from Keiser University where the Miami Heat are holding training camp. If you’ll take notice of the T-shirt that Butler is wearing in the above footage, it has a picture of Kelly Olynyk on the front of it.

The fun doesn’t stop there though. This appears to be a team-wide trend.

In the above photo from the Twitter account of Miami Herald reporter Anthony Chiang, you can see another one of the newest members of the Miami Heat getting in on the fun. Meyers Leonard is wearing a tee that features Jimmy Butler across the front. Of course, this isn’t all of it though.

To take the previous photo of Meyers Leonard to another level, I raise you this split photo from an apparent Miami Heat fan’s account. Along with Leonard and his shirt with Butler on the front of it, Jimmy Butler is sporting a T-shirt with Bam Adebayo across the front of it. Although you can’t see it in the raw post, if you tap the actual photo inside of the post to get a closer look, you can see Bam’s no. 13 in the photo on Butler’s shirt.

But wait, there’s more! In our final entry into the evidence pool here, we give you Dion Waiters. In the following post from the twitter account of the Five Reasons Sports Network, Waiters is also saluting one of his teammates by wearing him on his shirt.

Although a very tough find and identification unless you are very familiar with how the players dress and their shorting form, the player across the chest of Dion Waiters appears to be second-year forward Duncan Robinson. This is at least the third different player spotted wearing at least the fourth different version of T-shirts with their teammate’s picture on it.

I bet some of you are wondering why this even matters. This matters because real bonds are built upon the little things.

To make grandiose statements and larger than life public exhibitions oftentimes implies that actions or situations aren’t as genuine as they appear, due to the seemingly excessive need to prove as such, but it’s the small, medial, and/or sometimes nonsensical things that oftentimes mean the most.

Randomly wearing pictures of your teammates on your shirt counts as one of these “little things”. While some will say that this is excessive, it’s not as if they posted them on their own personal social media accounts or even mentioned them to the media in any fashion, they are just things that can’t help but be noticed.

We noticed them simply as a function of being active on social media, not because they were put out there with the expressed intent of being noticed. This is what leads me to believe that there is something special brewing and that a strong, solid, and very necessary brotherhood is teeing off in Miami.