Yurtseven’s ‘whirlwind’ offseason continues
Globetrotting reserve center Omer Yurtseven landed in Las Vegas, but his status for the summer league is uncertain because of a quad injury. He is eager to play and to hone his skills before his second season in Miami.
LAS VEGAS
It has been a hectic week for Miami Heat center Omer Yurtseven.
Yurtseven helped lead Turkey to a win over Great Britain in a World Cup qualifier game in England last Sunday. He then took a four-hour flight home to Turkey to spend time with family and friends before jumping on a 13-hour flight to Miami and eventually boarding a fivehour flight to join the Heat’s summer league team in Las Vegas on Wednesday night.
“It has been a little crazy. It’s a whirlwind,” said Yurtseven, who was not with the Heat for its threegame stint at the California Classic to open summer league. “But taking it one flight at a time.”
Yurtseven, 24, and the Heat are taking it one game at a time. He didn’t play in the Heat’s first Las Vegas Summer League game on Saturday against the Boston Celtics because of a quad injury suffered during his time with the Turkish national team.
Whether he will play in any of the Heat’s five games in Las Vegas is unclear. Yurtseven will have a couple of days to continue his recovery before Miami’s next summer league game Tuesday against the Atlanta Hawks (7 p.m., NBA TV).
“We’ll just see how it goes, see what the doc says over the weekend,” Heat assistant coach and summer league head coach Malik Allen said.
Yurtseven doesn’t have much to prove in summer league after dominating the summer circuit last year. He averaged 22.4 points and 11.2 rebounds per game for the Heat’s summer team last year, which was enough to get Miami to sign him to a two-year contract to get him on its 15-man roster before another team did.
Still, Yurtseven hopes to be able to play in some games in Las Vegas.
“That’s the reason I’m here,” he said. “I’m just here to pretty much get better and I think playing is the best way to do it.”
Considering Yurtseven is one of three players on the Heat’s summer league team who is on track to be on
the 15-man roster next season, the organization will surely take a cautious approach with him and his quad injury. He is due to make $1.8 million this upcoming season.
Simply having him around Heat coaches and staff during the summer is a positive. Heat coach Erik Spoelstra, assistant coach Chris Quinn, general manager Andy Elisburg and assistant general manager Adam Simon are among those in Las Vegas to take in summer league and the league-wide meetings and discussions that surround it.
“I was just talking to him, I said: ‘You’ve been through it last year.
You’ve played in games, played well in games. You’re a Heat guy,’ ”
Allen said of a discussion he had with Yurtseven on Friday. “So just being here, being a part of this is beneficial for us and it’s beneficial for him just to be around it and for the other guys. He’s talking to these guys just like guys spoke to him and talked to him and helped him along.”
Most of Yurtseven’s playing time as a rookie last season came during a six-week stretch while starting center Bam Adebayo sat out because of thumb surgery. Yurtseven flashed his intriguing offensive skills during that time, averaging 13.6 points, 13.9 rebounds and 2.9 assists in 10 games as a starter leading up to Adebayo’s Jan. 17 return.
Once Adebayo recovered returned, Yurtseven again dropped out of the rotation and logged double-digit minutes in just six games over the final three months of the regular season. The Heat went with a center rotation of Adebayo and Dewayne Dedmon for most of the season when they were both available.
One of Yurtseven’s