Teammates take in Dolphins win over Jets
Haslem shares his love for Dolphins with his friends
MIAMI Udonis Haslem spent the weekend letting his Heat teammates know where he stands: Alongside his beloved Dolphins. And in lockstep with his new fellow captains.
No longer the sole captain of the Heat, a title he held last season, Haslem said Monday that his lone goal is to continue to provide leadership, with James Johnson and Goran Dragic added as team captains for the first time.
“I’m on board with whatever it takes for us to be successful and to put ourselves in the best position to have an opportunity to hold that [championship] trophy up at the end,” he said in advance of Monday night’s game against the Hawks at AmericanAirlines Arena. “So I definitely think there needs to be other leaders. You know, my voice only goes so far. You’ve got to have leaders on the floor, as well.”
Haslem played in only three games over the second half of last season and then not at all during the preseason or the first two games of this season.
“So J.J. is a guy who a lot of these guys look up to and gravitate to,” Haslem said. “I see a lot of myself in him. It’s just amazing to see what Goran was able to do with his team [Slovenia in last month’s EuroBasket] and the way he led those guys, just hearing the crowd chant his name and different things like that. So he definitely knows he has that quality about him.”
It was in his role as captain that Haslem invited his teammates to Sunday’s Dolphins victory over the Jets at Hard Rock Stadium.
He said it was similar to outings the Heat had during their Big Three championship era with LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh.
“I’m a huge Dolphins fan,” he said. “It’s something I love to do in my free time. I take my family all the time and I consider these guys part of my family, so what not take them?”
Part of the game was spent with Dragic arguing about the superiority of soccer over football.
“That was what me and Gogi spent most of the day arguing over,” Haslem said.
By the end, Dragic found himself as somewhat of a football expert, particularly with the Jets opting to throw deep in their zone in the final minute and Bobby McCain coming up with an interception with 39 seconds to play that led to Cody Parkey’s 39-yard game-winning field goal.
“I’m not a professional at football,” Dragic said, “but, yeah, I mean, the last play was crazy with the Jets, The quarterback threw the ball straight into our guy’s arms and we got that interception.”
G League moves
The Heat elected Monday to start the NBA clock on the two-way contract of undrafted Central Florida guard Matt Williams Jr., keeping him on the roster while addressing several other aspects of their developmental-league roster.
While Williams remains with the Heat, the team sent their other two-way player, undrafted Michigan guard Derrick Walton Jr., to the G League Sioux Falls Skyforce for the start of their training camp in South Dakota.
In addition, backup center A.J. Hammons, who continues to count against the Heat’s 15-player NBA roster limit, was assigned to the Skyforce.
The Skyforce released their roster Monday, a roster that includes Heat training-camp cuts Larry Drew II, Erik McCree and Tony Mitchell.
Williams, Walton and Hammons are off limits to other NBA teams, with the remaining players on the Skyforce roster eligible to be signed by any team at any time.
The move to retain Williams was somewhat surprising, with players on two-way contracts limited to 45 total days in the NBA between Monday’s start of G League training camp and the end of the G League regular season.