South Florida Sun-Sentinel (Sunday)
Herro: ‘I felt like I was in jail’
Guard explains getting caught in tangled web of NBA testing
Miami Heat guard Tyler Herro said Saturday that he was putting on his uniform before Thursday night’s game against the Houston Rockets when he was told the result of his coronavirus testing would require additional inspection.
From there, “I felt like I was in jail.” So there he waited, in a quarantine room at the Toyota Center, as further coronavirus testing was conducted.
Now back with the team, Herro detailed his unsettling hours in Houston as he prepared for Saturday night’s game against the Utah Jazz, the second stop of the Heat’s seven-game trip.
“I found out like five minutes before [Heat coach Erik Spoelstra] came and spoke to the team,” Herro said of his Thursday whirlwind. “They said that I had a false positive, or I tested positive.
“I had to sit in the arena and watch the game in this little room. I completed like two or three tests and they all came back negative. So that allowed me to travel with the team.”
The NBA has such quarantine rooms in all arenas for just such eventualities.
“It was like a little tiny room. I felt like I was in jail,” the 21-year-old guard said. “The
TV was tiny. And it had a shower, so I was able to shower and watch the game. It was all right, but obviously [I] wanted to be out there, play, compete with the guys.
“I was just happy we were able to come up with the win and I was able to continue with the team on this road trip.”
Herro said there was no sense that anything was wrong after he completed his testing earlier Thursday.
“I had no clue,” he said. “I was literally
putting my uniform on, getting ready to play. I went through my whole routine and everything. And, like I said, five minutes before the trainers came and told me that I had tested positive.”
It was the third time this season Herro found himself in limbo with the NBA’s coronavirus protocols.
He previously had been held out of a Jan. 31 practice at AmericanAirlines Arena after a housemate returned what ultimately proved to be a false positive. He did not miss game action during that period.
Prior to that, Herro initially thought he would be among the players sent home from Boston on Jan. 11 due to contact tracing, but he was spared that two-game absence, instead continuing on with the team for two games in Philadelphia.
Herro was asked Saturday if he felt jinxed.
“Yeah, I mean a little bit,” he said. “I feel like my name keeps coming up in it. Now we’ve had two false positives under my name.
“It’s all a part of the world we’re living in right now. I just hope I don’t have to continue to deal with it.”
Herro said last summer he contracted COVID-19 during the NBA’s spring shutdown. He then produced several dominant performances during the Heat’s run within two victories of last season’s NBA championship.
“I mean, I have no clue how the virus works. We’re not doctors,” Herro said, when asked if he thought he could not contract the illness again.
“We’re living in a crazy time right now, playing in the NBA and going from city to city. We’re getting tested daily, multiple times a day. So I feel like any guy could falsely test positive.
“I mean, I wasn’t happy, obviously. I didn’t think I had the virus. I was kind of mad that I had tested falsely positive.”
While Herro returned to the Heat mix, the team remains without Goran Dragic, Avery Bradley, Meyers Leonard and Chris Silva due to injury. None of those four is on the trip.
Extra big man
The Sacramento Bee reported Saturday that the Heat are among the teams who have shown interest in Kings big man Nemanja Bjelica.
Bjelica, who at 6-foot-11 is a solid 3-pointer shooter, had fallen out of the Kings’ rotation.
According to the Bee report, the Heat would be able to take Bjelica into their $7.6 million salary-cap exception they hold from last season’s trade of James Johnson.
Because of that exception, the Heat could send back a player in return who does not earn the equivalent of Bjelica’s $7.1 million salary on his expiring contract.