Miami Heat: They May Have A Strong Nigerian National Team Olympic Presence
The Miami Heat are in the middle of their offseason and though the NBA Playoffs continue to rage on without them, they must do all they can at these moments to try and put themselves in a position to, once again, be one of the remaining teams playing at this point in the future.
With that though, it will require, not only, bringing in the right pieces to supplement the pieces that you have on the roster, but to also make sure that those pieces that you do have are getting better at their craft. That’s where the summer and offseason are important.
Not the typical offseason though, things may have just gotten a bit more wanky for two young Miami Heat players. According to reports, Heat forwards Precious Achiuwa and KZ Okpala have been invited to compete for a chance to represent their National Team, the Nigerian based D’Tigers.
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The Miami Heat have a strong Nigerian presence along their roster, which may extend all the way to the Nigerian National Team and then the Olympics.
Coach by Golden State Warriors assistant coach, Mike Brown, the Nigerian National team already features one Miami Heat player, Gabe Vincent. To go a bit deeper there though, they are only three of seven Heat players with Nigerian heritage, Bam Adebayo, Victor Oladipo, Trevor Ariza, and Andre Iguodala included.
Adebayo and Oladipo committed to playing with Team USA in the past, with Adebayo suiting up this summer and Oladipo being out with injury. With all that though, this would be a great opportunity for the younger two Miami Heat guys though.
Though you would love to have them in the Miami Heat’s summer development program, all three of them to be honest, they all need to play more basketball in order to fully maximize their potential to help the Miami Heat at the highest level during their pro season. Also of note, this is another form of development for them, trial by fire.
Though they won’t be competing against the best of the best every night, as in the NBA, they will be competing against a very high level of competition with NBA talent sprinkled throughout. To be fair, it’s probably a higher level of competition than they’d face in a traditional offseason of development as well, only dueling against equal level talent in workouts, coaches, and the occasional veteran on the fly, one would imagine.
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While they aren’t a lock to make the team, if they did, it would only serve to help. Hope they make it, it’ll get the young Heat guys some valuable court time and fans something extra to root on in the summer.