Hyde: Heat wants to change
With a roster that’s basically the same, what can be done better?
Same players. Same coach. Same hopes. Same fears. Same starting decisions. Same bench contributors. Same professional standards. Same internal drama. Same outside conversations.
Same Heat season? “We’re excited,” coach Erik Spoelstra said. “There’s tremendous room for growth with this team.”
You hear people say all the time they don’t want things to change in their lives. But I think, more often than not, that’s just a half-truth.
Don’t we all want things to change, just a little bit? Don’t we all in high school look forward to being young adults? Or, as we grow older, wish we had more time to learn another language, more discipline to train for a triathlon or more freedom in the job? To, somehow, be a little better?
The Heat want to change. They want to make a trade with Minnesota for Jimmy Butler under the right terms for the right players. But unless and until that happens, they’re the same team that hasn’t accomplished much the past two seasons.
Same characters. Same plot. Same script, too. They’re a Will Ferrell movie. If you’ve seen him as a soccer dad, you’ve seen him as basketball player — someone who’s a little lost and a little loud selling the idea of a comedy role a little too hard.
“You grow as a team by playing together more, and that’s what’s happening here,” veteran Dwyane Wade said.
“We’re still growing as individual players — and that means the team’s growing as a team,” guard Josh Richardson said.
“We know we have another level to get to,” guard Goran Dragic said. “That’s the challenge for us as this year moves on.”
The Heat weakness? They’re the team that finished sixth in the Eastern Conference last season, were rushed out of the playoffs in five games by Philadelphia and haven’t changed a thing to improve.
The Heat strength? They’re the same team that finished sixth in the Eastern Conference, were rushed out of the playoffs in five games by Philadelphia and haven’t changed a thing, so should improve.
“We create an environment where guys, if they commit, can become the players they always dreamed of becoming,” Spoelstra
said. “It always starts with tapping core values. ‘Hardest working, best conditioned, most professional’ is always a great place to start in this league.”
Across the league, there’s the normal ebb, flow and overnight reinventions that come with a new season. The Los Angeles Lakers became suddenly relevant with the addition of LeBron James, and Cleveland because similarly irrelevant with LeBron’s departure.
The king, Golden State, which could have got away with doing nothing, swapped one mercurial center in JaVale McGee for another more mercurial and more talented one in DeMarcus Cousins.
Boston, the favorite in the East, returns Gordon Hayward. Philadelphia, the rising team, is full of youth that’s still stretching its possibilities. Toronto swapped for Kawhi Leonard.
The Heat had sixth-place talent entering last season, and they have sixth-place talent entering this season. The only significant possibilities for change include Hassan Whiteside’s game and Dion Waiters’ health.
Whiteside seemed a shell of the consistent double-point, double-rebound player of his previous Heat stretch. Was it the big contract? The changed NBA game? And, most importantly, can he become the player he once was?
Waiters hit big shots two years ago, then missed most of last year with ankle surgery. He’ll miss the start of this year, too. Is this more of the same, too?
For the past two decades, the Heat has been the best-run franchise in South Florida. That’s something else that doesn’t change even as they run through a down cycle. The question is how to enjoy a season where so much seems preordained.
Two years ago, the core of this roster had a great run in the second half that brought it back for another chance.
Last year, they added pieces like Kelly Olynyk in the offseason and Dwyane Wade in midseason that didn’t change the predicted fate.
This year, they’re the same roster with the same idea.
Can they avoid the same season?