In the lane

FAVORED OPPONENT: The Heat on Wednesday night will get their first opportunity to face Briante Weber as an NBA opponent, after the Heat training-camp cut was signed to a 10-day contract by the Charlotte Hornets upon the expiration of his second 10-day contract with the Golden State Warriors. With the Warriors initially replacing Weber with Jose Calderon and then Matt Barnes, Golden State guard Steph Curry said he was optimistic that Weber would continue with the perseverance that has seen him battle back from a devastating knee injury as a Virginia Commonwealth senior in 2015 to stints with the Memphis Grizzlies, Heat, Warriors and now Hornets. “I just told him I appreciated his attitude and his effort and what he brought to us,” Curry said, with Weber delivering his infectious optimism to each locker room, including in Sioux Falls, where he helped the Heat’s affiliate to last season’s D-League championship. TRUE COLORS: Perhaps the truest measure of Erik Spoelstra is how the Heat coach sees possibilities where others see liabilities. So it was telling before Wednesday’s game against the Philadelphia 76ers when Spoelstra was asked to address the injuries that have sidelined Kevin Durant, Kyle Lowry and Joel Embiid. “It’s horrible, it’s horrible,” he said. “I hate looking at the news and you see another player out. We’re in a competitive business, but you don’t want to see the players out. I think we’re still first in missed games. I try not to think about it, but we’d be a much different basketball team right now if Justise Winslow and Josh McRoberts were with us the entire year.” And that’s the thing, where some have come to view now-sidelined Winslow and McRoberts as having held the Heat back from this turnaround, Spoelstra instead wonders how much more there could have been, staunchly supporting McRoberts even as the front office has attempted to offload the salary of the distinctive forward. COLE TRUTH: Before Durant’s defection last summer to the Warriors, the darkest hour for the Oklahoma City Thunder might have been going from a 1-0 lead to a 4-1 defeat to the Heat in the 2012 NBA Finals. It was in Game 4 of that series when Norris Cole sparked the Heat from an early 14-point deficit to victory with a pair of 3-pointers. Now Cole and the Thunder are linked again, with the former Heat guard back from a stint this season in China and signing on this past week to serve as Russell Westbrook‘s backup with Oklahoma City. “I think he understands what he’s walking into and what he’s got to do,” coach Billy Donovan told the KANGAROO KID: Honored in December by the Basketball Fraternity in Boca Raton, Billy Cunningham never quite got the credit in South Florida deserved for setting the groundwork for the Miami Heat’s personnel decisions, particularly drafting, at the franchise’s outset, seemingly lost thereafter in Pat Riley‘s shadow. But in Philadelphia they never forgot what Cunningham did for the 76ers as a player and coach, honoring Cunningham this weekend with a statue at their practice facility in Camden, N.J. Cunningham won a championship as a 76ers player in 1966-67 and as a coach in 1982-83.