The Miami Heat did it again. Surely matriculated all around the sports news and information landscape by now, to anyone who cares that much anyway, Dewayne Dedmon of the Miami Heat was the latest guy to cause a disturbance on the sideline.
Harkening back to LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, and the most recent incident involving Jimmy Butler, Udonis Haslem, and Coach Erik Spoelstra from last season—it wasn’t the first time that there was a perceived dustup on the sidelines.
Now, in this case with Dedmon, it wasn’t “perceived” at all, but extremely real. In case you have been living under a rock, here are the details surrounding the event in question.
Here's the play preceding the Dedmon argument and ejection. Dedmon doesn't provide much interference on OKC's transition possession, doesn't get back to protect the rim. Not much went right for any Heat defender on this play. Unclear if this is related to the ejection. https://t.co/T3BdVKAoAe pic.twitter.com/d4L7FvefE3
— Wes Goldberg (@wcgoldberg) January 11, 2023
Leading to what was an ejection for an object landing on the playing court, it seems as though the Miami Heat had sent Dedmon to the locker room anyway. Whether that was intended to be for the rest of the evening or not can be debated, perhaps, but he was already headed that way, it appeared, when he flailed at what turned out to be a massage gun.
The Miami Heat had another incident on the sidelines. Seeming like an annual tradition at this point, the whole rundown on this one is simpler than it seems.
And here was Coach Spoelstra’s response when asked after the game. It was typical Miami Heat stuff, the response and well, the incident.
Spoelstra said that most of the situation with Dedmon was healthy but the end was “unacceptable.”
— Five Reasons Sports 🏀🏈⚾️🏒⚽️ (@5ReasonsSports) January 11, 2023
You totally believe the “healthy” part of it, because that’s the kind of passion, grit, want to, and determination that makes Miami Heat players who they are and what makes Dewayne Dedmon effective when he is. However and as stated by Spo, the end was, indeed, unacceptable.
One, there needs to be more respect than that for his head coach, the rest of the staff, and for his team. But speaking of his team though and for a group that’s already on the smaller side when whole, they were down a ton of guys on Tuesday night and that includes the regular starting center.
Nevermind the fact that said starting center, Bam Adebayo, is playing at an All-Star level this year, all around, while he’s a perennial Defensive Player Of The Year candidate. All in all, Dedmon has to be smarter and you hope that he will.
Because even for all those that may never want to see him play another minute for this Miami Heat ball club, until there is a, flat-out, better option out there—what other choice do they have?