Miami Heat: 3 reasons I don’t mind a Meyers Leonard starting lineup

The Miami Heat put Meyers Leonard back into the starting lineup recently. I don’t have a major issue there.

The Miami Heat rolled out a starting lineup for much of last season that looked the same. It was one that featured Kendrick Nunn, Jimmy Butler, Duncan Robinson, Bam Adebayo, and most notably for our purposes here, Meyers Leonard.

It wasn’t up until Leonard got hurt last season, which simultaneously seemed to occur as Jae Crowder was coming on for this Miami Heat team, that Leonard wasn’t the guy in the starting lineup. Meyers’s unavailability mixed with what Jae was doing from deep range at the time equaled him losing his starting job.

After the deal Meyers landed and coming into the season, we thought the starting job was, again, his for the taking. That was up until game one against Orlando where he didn’t start.

Then, in game two, he was back to being the starting guy. I didn’t mind it last season when he was the starter and I wouldn’t mind it again this season for the long haul.

There are three main reasons why. Let’s look at them.

Size

The old saying goes, “you can’t teach seven-foot”. What that means is that while you can teach a guy or player a lot of things, including the fundamentals of the game, passing, shooting, defense, and most other things, you simply cannot teach size and height.

Meyers Leonard has them both. The Miami Heat don’t necessarily have an abundance of it on their roster.

He’s their biggest guy. While he might not be a shot-blocker in the most traditional sense, he is a big body and sometimes that’s enough.

That’s the first reason why I don’t mind it.