Kel'el Ware's first NBA season was promising. Not earth-shattering, not a guarantee of future stardom, but still rock-solid and encouraging from all angles.
The Miami Heat are, of course, hoping there's another big step coming. And more forward progress after that. If not, they'll kick themselves over their refusal to include him in their trade offer for Kevin Durant. They will, however, play a part in whether this works out or not, and so far, they're doing the right thing, namely by putting him under the tutelage of three-time All-Star and keeper of Heat culture Bam Adebayo.
"I'm hard on Kel'el," Adebayo told reporters. "... I was raised by [Udonis Haslem]."
Ware has, in essence, decades of institutional knowledge at his disposal. If he doesn't pan out, it won't be for the lack of expert mentorship.
Adhering to the Heat's strict guidelines for conditioning and hustle could unlock the full potential for Ware's career.
The Heat have high expectations for their players. They want to be, as team president Pat Riley has shared time and again, the "hardest working, best conditioned, most professional, unselfish, toughest, nastiest, disliked team in the league."
Maybe non-Heat fans—or even sections of this fanbase—are tired of hearing those words, but they are this group's guiding principles for a reason. It might sound like a lot of clichéd things, but the power of those words becomes obvious when the organization, say, goes to three Eastern Conference finals and two NBA Finals over a four-year span in which it never had the league's most loaded roster.
This system is, as coach Erik Spoelstra will often say, not for everyone, though. It requires an awful lot of hard work, and not every professional will buy into that.
To be brutally honest, Ware remains a work in progress on that front. That's surely why Spo felt the need to call out his young center this summer, stressing the need to "embrace and improve his professionalism" and "take ownership of it."
For those familiar with some of the worries around Ware leading up to the 2024 draft, Spo's pointed words sounded more like alarm sirens.
Ware seemingly responded to the criticism in the right way, though. And if he's willing to embrace everything the Heat has to offer him, he can hit the extreme ends on the best-case-scenario side of his career projections.
Miami knows that. And it knows how much that would mean for this franchise and the possibilities in front of it. The Heat have other talented young players, obviously, but he's their most obvious building block: a true unicorn big man who can stretch the floor, score around the rim, protect the paint, and defend in space.
There aren't many big men capable of checking all of those boxes. Adebayo himself can't even do it.
What he can do, though, is help ensure Ware's many talents aren't wasted by any lack of effort, intensity, physicality, or commitment. The Heat have a way of doing business that Ware would be wise to adopt, and he couldn't have a better teacher from whom to learn it.