Ellington hoping to stay on in Miami
Guard understands business but ‘this is the place that I want to be.’
MIAMI — When Wayne Ellington signed with the Miami Heat last summer he was joining his seventh team in his eighth season in the NBA, and his sixth in the past five years.
He was the consummate journeyman.
But after averaging a careerhigh 10.5 points and shattering his personal-best with 149 3-pointers, Ellington hopes he’s found a home.
“This is the place that I want to be,” Ellington said following a season in which the Heat rallied from an 11-30 start to finish at .500 and fall one game short of the playoffs.
“This is the place that feels like home to me; that feels really good to me. I feel like the things that we accomplished on the court show that. So we’ll see what happens, man, but I have a good feeling.”
Ellington, 29, signed a twoyear, $12 million deal with the Heat last summer, with the team having the option to pick up the $6 million he would be owed for 2017-18.
Even with Ellington proving to be a solid scoring option off the bench, the Heat’s decision will not be an easy one. Miami is looking to free up as much cap space as possible. Depending on who it targets and what it would take to make a hard run at retaining James Johnson and Dion Waiters, that $6 million could come in handy. Waiters announced
last week that he will opt out of his deal and become a free agent.
“Everybody feels the same way,” Ellington said. “It’s not just me, it’s not just coach. Everybody feels the same way about this team. I’m sure everybody wants to stay together and we’re going to try to make it happen, I hope.
“This is something that was special to all of us. Not just myself, but it felt like this is the start of something that could really be great for us. But I understand the
business.”
Ellington’s story was a familiar this season. He credits the Heat’s offseason conditioning program for getting him into shape. And although he missed the first 16 games of the season after suffering a thigh bruise late in the preseason, he made an immediate impact with 39 points in wins at Denver and Utah in late November and early December (his second and third games of the season) while shooting 14 of 23 from the field.
Ellington finished the season shooting 37.8 percent on 3-point attempts, 41.6 percent overall.
“It goes back to August and the type of work we were required to put in,” he said. “I got in really good shape from the beginning. I think that elevated my game.”
Ellington also credited coach Erik Spoelstra for recognizing his strengths. Ellington came off the bench for most of the 62 games he played and was given the freedom to take advantage of his catch-and-shoot ability with one of the quickest releases in the league.
“(Spoelstra) instills so much confidence, not just in me, but I think in all the guys,” he said. “It helped a lot. ... He saw something in
me that he felt like I could really help our team and I’m forever thankful that he put me in that position.”
Strong TV numbers: Is South Florida turning into a basketball area?
That’s been a question asked by many since LeBron James and Chris Bosh joined Dwyane Wade in Miami to form the Big Three in the summer of 2010.
It’s unfair to answer this based on one game, but the television ratings for Sunday’s Game 2 of the NBA Finals are worth noting. According to Nielsen, the Miami-Fort Lauderdale market ranked fourth with a 17.7
rating behind just Cleveland (32.4), San Francisco-Oakland (31.1) and Columbus (19.5) — three markets with an obvious rooting interest in this year’s Finals between Golden State and Cleveland.
South Florida was also watching Game 1, as the Miami-Fort Lauderdale market ranked fifth with a 15.8 rating behind Cleveland (33.4), San Francisco-Oakland (30.9), Columbus (17.3) and Memphis (16.3).
The West Palm Beach market ranked 16th for Game 1 with a 12.7 rating and 17th for Game 2 with another 12.7 rating.
This isn’t the first year
that an NBA Finals game not involving the Heat has drawn an impressive TV rating locally. The Miami-Fort Lauderdale market ranked fourth for Game 7 of the 2016 NBA Finals between Cleveland and Golden State.
By comparison, the MiamiFort Lauderdale market did not rank in the top 10 for Super Bowl 51 in February.
What’s the reason for this? It could be South Florida’s love-hate relationship with James or it could just be that South Florida is slowly turning into a basketball town.