Spygate for Heat? No, but Dragic could be scouting opponents

It is a common sight during the NCAA Tournament: A team wins the first game of an early-round doubleheader, then moves to the stands to scout its upcoming competition.

Now the approach could be coming to the NBA.

With all of the league’s remaining games to be played at the Wide World of Sports Complex at Disney World, amid the new coronavirus pandemic, it affords players the opportunity to handle their own scouting.

“Sometimes you don’t have much to do here,” Miami Heat guard Goran Dragic said. “If you explore all the options, then definitely I want to go and watch some games, especially if that team you’re playing next is playing.

“Hopefully, we can get some info

before they play, before we play against them, and try to get better like that.”

The league has made allowances for socially distanced players to attend other games, with all involved in the league’s strict quarantine and testing for COVID-19.

The Heat typically have director of scouting Chad Kammerer on the road to chart opposing plays in advance of those teams’ games against the Heat. But with the league’s Disney setup limiting such up-close perspective, and with Kammerer not in the bubble, Heat coach Erik Spoelstra instead plans to use his staff for such advance work. The Heat’s last two video coordinators, Eric Glass and Dan Bisaccio, are among the traveling party.

As it is, with so much uncertainty within the Disney bubble, the makeup of opposing rosters and opposing game plans could change on a nightly basis. Spoelstra, in fact, said he is not yet at the point of reestablishing his rotation, particularly with Bam Adebayo and Kendrick Nunn yet to be part of the Disney practice mix.

“I’m not really trying to check that box right now,” Spoelstra said before giving his team Saturday off. “There’s a lot of other things that we’re just preparing and getting our team ready, getting them five-on-five conditioning, reacclimating everybody to the system, to each other, to understanding how we want to play, what the pathways are to our success as a team.

“So I’m focused on those things and who’s available in the gym right now.”

State of the Heat: Spoelstra said the work is ongoing in advance of the Heat’s exhibition opener Wednesday against the Sacramento Kings at 8 p.m. (Fox Sports Sun).

“I see some rhythm and conditioning that still needs to happen,” he said. “But I’m encouraged by the work and the guys competing in five-on-five.”

Spoelstra said the three exhibitions arrive at the right time, with the same sense about the Aug. 1 resumption of the regular season. Dragic agreed.

“I can’t wait to start playing games,” he said. “That’s why you’re here.”

For now, it has been about resetting the thinking after the league’s fourmonth layoff.

“We’ve needed to go through some detail work,” Spoelstra said.