The Miami Heat were facing a murky situation with getting players back into gear. With a league memo though, refreshing guys won’t be an issue.
The Miami Heat come into the 2020-21 season in a very interesting position. Being what seems like fresh off of a run deep into the playoffs and all the way to the NBA Finals, they are right back at it in about a week or so.
With that in mind, for them and their competitors from the Finals in the Los Angeles Lakers, periods of rest to begin the season were inevitable situations that they would have to navigate. Well, it seems that the path just got a bit easier to travel.
The GPS came in the form of a memo on the topic from the league. Per Tim Bontemps of ESPN, the league has eased the policy on resting players for certain scenarios.
The Miami Heat are among those teams where those “certain scenarios” apply. Here is the meat of Bontemps’s report.
"In a memo sent to teams by the NBA Monday morning, the league laid out resting policies for the 2020-21 regular season — including granting significant flexibility to teams resting players in non-nationally televised games, particularly at the start of the season.The memo, which was obtained by ESPN, says that flexibility applies to teams playing back-to-back games and presents examples of possible scenarios, including, “to rest a key veteran player who played a substantial role on a team that advanced deep into the 2020 Playoffs, or to rest a player who is still returning to full strength after recovering from COVID-19.”That would appear to be a clear nod to players like Los Angeles Lakers stars LeBron James and Anthony Davis, and Miami Heat star Jimmy Butler, who played until mid-October, when the NBA Finals wrapped up, and will have to start the new season just over two months later."
The Miami Heat will certainly look to get their guys some rest throughout the year in certain spots. Although it is the Heat way to soldier on and through, anyone that gave as much as Jimmy did during the NBA Bubble deserves a rest.
We guess those guys on the other coast do as well, we guess. It’s welcomed news, as at least we don’t have to fear penalty for trying to get our guys back in the best possible shape to do it all over again.