Miami Heat legend Tim Hardaway thinks title path is wide open this season

Miami Heat legend, NBA royalty, and crossover king Tim Hardaway sat down for an interview recently. Here is what he had to say on this Heat team’s title hopes.

The Miami Heat are a relatively young team, but one that is very rich already in history. They have housed some of the all-time great players like Dwyane Wade, Shaquille O’Neal, LeBron James, Chris Bosh, Alonzo Mourning, Ray Allen, Anfernee “Penny” Hardaway, Juwan Howard, Jermaine O’Neal, Gary Payton, and Amar’e Stoudemire to name a few. One of the other legends that has been apart of the Miami Heat organization at one point or another is the crossover king, Tim Hardaway.

Tim Hardaway was seemingly before his time. His ability to dribble the way he could, while also being able to shoot like he could was somewhat of a novelty for his time.

While having a 17.7 points per game average for his career, he also accrued averages of 3.3 rebounds and 8.2 assists per game across his career. He was a five-time All-Star, a five-time All NBA player, and the 1989-90 rookie of the year.

He sat down with Mark Carman for his On the Mark Podcast recently to talk about a few things. There are two things that we will touch on here, the first is his feelings on the Miami Heat’s chances to win a title this season. Here is what Hardaway had to say.

"Whewww, Balling! Oh man, it’s wide open, it’s wide open. They…They…really, the expectations for them were “nothing”, but the identity of the Miami Heat comes back from where it was. Jimmy Butler has instilled that in all these guys today, and he’s not out there ridiculing anybody. He’s not out there pointing fingers at anybody, he’s not out there, you know, chastising anybody or yelling at anybody. He’s out there coaching these young guys and having them play and bringing the culture of the Miami Heat back, about working hard, being in great condition, playing hard, don’t let nobody exceed your energy or your effort each and every night, and the way we are going to win is by playing defense and rebounding the basketball. And, we know we could put the ball in the basket, but that’s not, that’s not the way we are going to win. We’re going to win on stopping people and that’s where they have the hard hat on."

While he continued on a bit, he basically continued to wax poetic about the fact that the Miami Heat are simply playing the game the right way. On his take, I completely agree, nothing to add there and why would you after a legend has spoken so candidly.

The second thing we need to touch on is why he believes Jimmy Butler came to Miami. He basically believes that Jimmy wanted his own team to delegate as well as being around guys who would work with him. While that is similar to my own belief, there are slight differences in our takes there.

I believe that Jimmy came to Miami because, yes, he did want to be around guys with similar makeup that would work with him, but he also yearned for the culture that the Miami Heat stands for and that Hardaway spoke about in his quote earlier. On the delegating part, I would say that he wanted to have to delegate less, because to be apart or to play with the Miami Heat already means that you are privy to the principles that Jimmy Butler personifies, lives by, and plays the game of basketball through.

While the prognosis was similar, the path to prognosis was a bit different, but all insightful. The interview is definitely worth a listen and we encourage you to do so!