Miami Heat: Naivety presents a different positive outlook on hiatus

The Miami Heat are fueled by nice doses of youth and experience. Here’s a different potential outlook on how the hiatus & naivety are positively correlated.

When the Miami Heat got set to begin this season, we didn’t know what to expect. While we knew that the team would look quite a bit differently, especially with the subtraction of Hassan Whiteside and the addition of Jimmy Butler, we didn’t quite know that we would get the version of the team that has presented themselves thus far this season.

As a fanbase, we were rather excited at the potential that Meyers Leonard could tap into in Miami, again especially considering that we were getting him and Jimmy Butler, while sending Hassan to Portland in his place seemingly. These are things we knew. What we didn’t know is how big of an impact that the young players would have on this team.

When thinking about some of the biggest contributors to this Miami Heat team, they are either first, second, or third-year guys. Their leader in games played, games started, field goals made, offensive rebounds, defensive rebounds, total rebounds, and blocks per game is third-year big man extraordinaire, Bam Adebayo.

Their best shooter is a second-year guy in Duncan Robinson. One of their best scorers, their leading shot taker, is a small rookie guard in Kendrick Nunn.

Their best pure creator, whether that be for his own shot or someone else’s, is a rookie combo guard named Tyler Herro. Although they have only played sparingly, first-year forwards KZ Okpala and Chris Silva have also found themselves thrown into the fire at times. What’s this all mean though?

For starters, it means that the future is definitely bright in South Beach, but the now isn’t all that bad either and here’s why. What we often point to with our guys, in particular and especially considering the rigors of being a Miami Heat player, is the fact that it’s simply the need for more experience and/or being able to see things in the NBA that keeps them from being extremely effective as we move deeper into the season and playoffs.

Well and while we wish basketball was still being played, this crop of players have sort of had time to dive into those things. With this hiatus, the players mentioned and every young player around the league for that matter, has had the opportunity by now to watch every possession they’ve had this season.

This can mean leaps and bounds for a young player because it immediately shows them what has been effective, what hasn’t, gives them different looks or different theories to think about, or simply opens them up to what they haven’t seen and how they might attack it if and when they do. Why is this so different than any other year, you might ask?

In any other year, the games and practices all run so close together that players are too busy focused on the next team to think about every little nuanced detail from the last contest. Fortunately and so very unfortunately at the same time right now, they have all the time in the world to go back and deep dive into these possessions, plays, and games in particular.

This allows them the opportunity to see more, as again that’s oftentimes what separates rookies and second-year guys from vets, the amount of varying NBA basketball they’ve experienced. That is how the Miami Heat’s naivety presents a different positive outlook on this hiatus.