Called game rankles Young
The postponement of the Miami Heat’s Wednesday night road game against the San Antonio Spurs evoked the ire of an NBA All-Star, who viewed the move as part of a double standard.
The Heat’s game at the AT&T Center was postponed when the Heat were unable to meet the NBA requirement of a minimum of eight players in uniform, with six players in heathand-safety protocols and six sidelined by injury.
To Atlanta Hawks guard Trae Young, it is no different than what his team has been forced to patch together during a rough patch of its own.
“I was just confused,” Young said in reaction to the Heat postponement. “We had like four guys fly in (Tuesday night) just to make the roster and play. We were able to find a way.”
The Heat made a similar attempt, but with the game in San Antonio coming on the second night of a backto-back set that opened with Tuesday night’s victory over the Washington Wizards at FTX Arena, timing elements and pandemic protocols got in the way.
“I don’t know if it’s on the league or on our part to complain and be forceful with what’s going on,” Young said. “Other teams have gotten games postponed and are waiting on guys to get back.
”We have, really, three guys who play big minutes for our team. When you include (Skylar Mays), we have four guys. It’s kind of crazy.“
With Young among those who have been in protocols, the Hawks are 3-7 in their last 10 games.
The Hawks last season finished one game ahead of the Heat, securing the No. 5 Eastern Conference playoff seed and defeating the New York Knicks in the first round. The Heat, at No. 6, were swept in the first round by the Milwaukee Bucks.
Heat-Spurs was the 10th postponement this season, with the league emphasizing to teams to take whatever steps are necessary to add players and create playable rosters. The contracts of all emergency additions count neither against the salary cap or luxury tax.
In addition to the neophytes the Heat have added, G League players Haywood Highsmith, Kyle Guy and Aric Holman, the team also plans to sign NBA veteran Nik Stauskas to a similar emergency 10-day contract.
Stauskas, 28, has appeared in 335 regular-season games with the Kings, 76ers, Nets, Trail Blazers and Cavaliers.
A career .353 3-point shooter, Stauskas might be best known for acquiring the nickname “Sauce Castillo” due to a captioning error on an arena scoreboard. Boosted by social media, it took off from there, with the Kings featuring a ”Sauce Castillo Night“while he played in Sacramento, which featured a hot-sauce giveaway.