When it rains, it pours, and right now, nothing seems to be going right for the Miami Heat. After a blistering 14-7 start to the season, Miami has lost five in a row and looks like a shell of what they were in October and November.
Among the players who appear to be the proverbial punching bag for Erik Spoelstra has been Kel’el Ware, who just can seem to do anything right to earn the trust of his coach and playing time on the court.
Kel’el Ware continues to see his minutes shrink
In Miami’s last two games, Ware hasn’t topped 20 minutes in either. In fact, only seven times this season has Ware played less than 20 minutes, and three of those have come in the last six games.
A big part of it has to do with the defensive side of the court. Ware has 13 games this season with a defensive rating above 119, and seven of those have come in his last seven. He has also been in the negative for plus/minus in all seven of those games, and he hasn’t hit a three in six of those seven games (we promise that’s not a 6-7 joke, that’s just litteraly what he hasn’t done).
But for a team that is struggling to also score points and has seen its free-flowing offense disappear, it feels like there would be some benefit from getting a mobile big man who can stretch the floor and hit threes some more minutes. While Ware hasn’t hit a three during this stretch, he also hasn’t been taking them. Despite a season average of 2.3 attempts from three per game, Ware has attempted one or no threes in six of his last eight games.
Parralell Universe
The descent of Ware parallels Miami’s descent as a whole. Around Thanksgiving, he ripped off three straight games with 20 points and was still +16 in the win over Milwaukee. Ware’s reward was a drop in minutes in the next game against the Pistons and just 16 minutes against the Clippers.
All the more frustrating is that it feels like, at times, Spoelstra himself doesn’t know whether to trust Ware or whether to make him this mythical example on a team with warts all around.
Even more frustrating is that if Ware isn’t the guy and this is who Miami thought he was all along is the fact that Miami wouldn’t include him in trade discussions this offseason.
Knowing the yo-yo act of Ware, he’ll probably pop off for 25 points against the Nets tonight, and we will all wonder if he has turned a corner again.
If not, we will all have to wonder what happened to the free-flowing player from November.