WHAT, ME WORRY?

With James Harden off to the Nets, Heat’s Duncan Robinson just rolls with rumors

When it comes to the value of the Miami Heat’s support system, Tuesday night’s 137-134 overtime loss to the Philadelphia 76ers at Wells Fargo Center stood front and center.

Because Tyler Herro and Duncan Robinson stood front and center, in a game the Heat played in the absence of Jimmy Butler, Bam Adebayo and Goran Dragic, due to pandemic protocols.

From Herro, there were a careerhigh 34 points, a game after he eclipsed his previous regularseason high with 31 in a victory over the Washington Wizards this season. For Robinson, there were a season-high 26 points, including six 3-pointers.

Their value never has seemed higher.

The irony is those performances came on a night when James Harden all but demanded a trade from the Houston Rockets, noting in his postgame comments after a loss to the Los Angeles Lakers, “I love this city. I literally have done everything that I can. I mean, this situation is crazy. It’s something that I don’t think can be fixed.”

So back to the trade rumors it was, only to now, at least in the case of Harden, find them extinguished, with word of Harden being dealt by the Rockets to the Brooklyn Nets in a multi-team deal.

Yes, Robinson and Herro were paying attention.

And, yes, it was something they found themselves playing through, with the Heat previously linked to speculation of a package that would have sent Herro and Robinson to Houston.

“This is something that Tyler and I talked about, too,” Robinson said recently on the JJ Redick podcast that was posted Monday. “There was definitely a stretch, particularly in training camp, where it was just like you couldn’t pick up your phone without it being on there in some capacity. So it’s definitely a challenge.”

While the Rockets were interested in a package flush with draft picks, something the Heat lack, the Harden situation cast somewhat of a shadow over the Heat, when just about every Heat name beyond Butler and Adebayo were tossed into the conversation.

“The frustrating thing about trade rumors, that I had the luxury about not knowing about until this year, is that, in my case, my really

close friends know not to do it,” Robinson said of his phone blowing up. “But it’s kind of like that second tier of people, will be like, ’Yo, did you see this?’

“That’s just like, to think that, first of all, that I wouldn’t have seen that somewhere if it involves me and it’s trending to the point where you saw it?”

Robinson said the information that needs to get to him — such as Wednesday’s word of Harden to the Nets — comes from a select circle.

“My really close friends get it,” he said. “And I kind of keep a tight circle in that sense, in that they know where I’m at with everything, and they know what there would be to know and that type of thing.”

That makes it easier to recover from tough nights such as Tuesday and turn to Thursday’s repeat challenge against the 76ers, when the Heat will return to the Wells Fargo Center still shorthanded, the eight Heat players in COVID-19 protocols not expected back until, at the earliest, Saturday’s game against the Detroit Pistons at AmericanAirlines Arena.

So, Robinson said on Redick’s podcast, it becomes a matter of grinning and bearing with it, with speculation still out there about Heat interest in a potential deal for Washington Wizards guard Bradley Beal.

“The one thing that has been kind of dangerous about the trade rumors is that my mom, who struggles with technology in general,” Robinson said with a laugh. “I love her, obviously. But like she has some Heat app, I don’t even know how she has it. Like I don’t even know what app it is. It’s like not an official app. It’s like some blog or whatever. And she just gets all the updates pinged right to her phone, and occasionally it’ll boil over.

“And she’s like, ‘No, I’m not going to talk to Duncan about this. I’m not going to do it. I’m not going to do it.’ And then all of a sudden, ‘It’s like it has gone too far,’ and there’s like some reliable — quote, unquote — source who says that I’m like in the mix and then she calls me and be like, ‘Are you seeing this? Is everything OK? Do I need to do anything?’ “

So the warning will come, just as it might have to again, with the Harden situation again a tinderbox.

“And,” Robinson said of his conversations with his mother, “I’m like, ‘Just don’t listen. If you hear anything, like hear it from me.’ ”

MARK J. TERRILL/AP Those James Harden rumors? They were back briefly for the Heat’s Duncan Robinson.