Kel'el Ware's start to the 2025-26 NBA season has been packed with ups and downs, jubilations and frustrations, imagination-inducing stat lines and frustration-filled bouts of indifference. It has been, in frankly unsurprising ways, a full display of the Kel'el Ware experience.
Remember when Heat coach Erik Spoelstra felt the need to call out his young center this summer for similarly lethargic stretches? It wasn't surprising then, just like the frustration around Ware's ongoing inconsistency isn't surprising now.
This is, unfortunately, who he has been and who he is. And in order for Miami to ever take the next step, it will have to solve this puzzle once and for all.
Ware's inconsistency has been a constant in his career.
Before the Heat made Ware the 15th pick of the 2024 draft, he split his two-year college career with two different schools: Oregon and Indiana. If things had gone according to plan, he'd have never been a Hoosier.
A top-10 recruit and McDonald's All-American, Ware was supposed to be on the one-and-done path to the pros. His lone go-round with the Ducks had way too many letdowns for that to happen. He had just as many double-digit scoring efforts as he did games with two points or fewer (eight apiece).\
So, while his athletic abilities and skills were certainly drool-worthy, scouts worried about his inconsistent impact. Sam Vecenie of The Athletic, who ranked Ware 26th in that class, raved about Ware's measurements, finishing, and shooting potential in his 2024 draft guide, but cautioned that the big man didn't "play with much force" and had pressing concerns about Ware's "engagement and motor."
In other words, the same things that are frustrating Spoelstra and Heat fans now have been cited as problem areas for years. And, not to get too dramatic when talking about a 21-year-old in his second NBA season, but these are the kind of issues that can't necessarily be coached out of someone.
The Heat can help Ware with his overall skill level and awareness, but he's the one who has to rev up his motor, increase his overall level of engagement, and play with the necessary force to dominate at this level. He is clearly capable of doing it in stretches, but Miami needs that kind of impact every night.
If he was farther along on solving this problem, he'd be a more featured part of the Heat's on-court plan. Instead, he's seventh on the team in minutes and has only cleared 24 minutes in one of his first seven contests. And it's not like he's making a great case for more action while posting one of the worst net differentials on the team: minus-25 points per 100 possessions, per NBA.com.
The good news is that time is on his side. The worry, though, is that he's seemingly made very little use of the time he's already had to handle this. Miami's frustrations are no different than the ones felt way back at Oregon, so this has lingered long enough to worry it may never go away. Or at least it won't without much better effort on his part.