The Miami Heat are surely busy preparing for the new season to tip. As the schedule and key dates on it start to trickle down along the news wire, the Miami Heat’s season and the difficulties that may come with are starting to take shape.
One of the difficulties or misfortunes for the Miami Heat, at least, might be the fact that they have come up short, thus far, in their pursuit of another big-name player to add to their core. With both Donovan Mitchell and Kevin Durant in the news all offseason long it seems, among others, the Miami Heat have seemed to do their due diligence on both of those fronts.
Outside of adding another high-impact talent, in general, the exodus of P.J. Tucker also presented another problem. Finding a guy that could provide as much value and in the specific areas that Tucker did would be hard enough, but then there’s the generality of that situation too.
Outside of specifically working to make sure that the hole he left isn’t one that’s too greatly felt, they could have stood to add more depth in their power forward ranks, whether he returned or not. They have a few options to try there, but another guy or two could still help or have helped.
Though the Miami Heat could stand to add more to their PF rotation, there is one guy they can’t stand to lose. Udonis Haslem will make that call soon on year 20.
Speaking of power forwards though, that leads to another thing to sort out within the ranks of the Miami Heat before the season gets underway. Udonis Haslem, The Captain, has yet to decide or announce, rather, whether he’ll return for his 20th season or not.
But, it seems that the time has come when he will do so.
Udonis Haslem will announce whether he intends to retire or play another season during his Miami Basketball & Cheer Camp for Kids at Miami Senior HS on Sunday.
— Will Manso (@WillManso) August 18, 2022
Set to make the announcement at his basketball camp, the setting does seem awfully similar to another famous announcement that ended up working out pretty well for the Miami Heat. That would be Lebron James’, now infamous, The Decision.
Though he hasn’t and won’t play much for the Miami Heat, his value to the team and franchise goes far beyond what he is capable of on the floor at this point. Looking back to their sideline snafu of last season and though he was a huge part of the initial kerfuffle, UD is also likely a huge part of what helped them right the ship.
And right the ship, so much so, that they were able to make to within a Jimmy Butler range miss of the NBA Finals. That has value and hopefully, Haslem is around for, at least, one more year to keep providing it.