Spoelstra: ‘This has been a horrible 24 hours’
The Heat and Lakers share plenty of connections. Heat president and former Lakers coach Pat Riley is at the center of a lot of them, but so is Kobe Bryant.
The two teams are on opposite sides of the country and separated by conference lines.
But the Miami Heat and Los Angeles Lakers share plenty of connections. Heat president and former Lakers coach Pat Riley is at the center of a lot of them, but so is Lakers great Kobe Bryant.
A rivalry between Shaquille O’Neal and Bryant that began when the Lakers traded O’Neal to the shared experiences had current and former Heat players, coaches and executives reflecting on Bryant’s life after he was killed Sunday along with his 13-yearold daughter, Gianna, in a helicopter crash in Calabasas, California.
Just minutes before Monday’s game between the Heat and Magic at Amer
icanAirlines Arena, the Heat honored Bryant and Gianna with a tribute video that included various highlights from Bryant’s playing career and ended with a photo of Bryant and Gianna. Then there were 24 seconds of silence in the arena, honoring the No. 24 jersey Bryant wore for the second part of his career. The crowd capped the pregame tribute off with chants of “Kobe!”
The Bryant tribute continued at the start of the game, when the Heat took a 24second violation on the first possession and the Magic followed by taking an eightsecond violation on the next possession in honor of the two jersey numbers Bryant wore during his NBA career.
Even the AmericanAirlines Arena marquee was used to pay tribute, as it displayed a rotating series of photos of Bryant and Gianna throughout the day Monday.
“This has been a horrible 24 hours,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said in advance of Monday’s game. “As a parent, it absolutely crushes your heart to think about this. When something like this happens, it can be so wrong and so arbitrary. We found out about it literally as we were leaving the building [Sunday] after practice and I immediately went home and spent time with my family and we just immersed ourselves in watching for about three hours. It just got worse and worse.
“It’s just tragic and our hearts go out to all the families. I think we can all relate to that as parents. That’s just absolutely tragic and heartbreaking.”
For Heat guard Dion Waiters, the past 24 hours have been full of tears. Waiters, who has gone by the nickname Kobe Wade in the past, looked up to Bryant as a fellow Philadelphia native.
“He meant everything, just what he embodied, his leadership, the mentality,” Waiters said. “He just set the tone for a lot of guys coming up. That’s by far probably the hardest part for me. I don’t think I’ve cried that much in a long time, since my little brother passed.
“’It’s just sad, man, being a father. I have two daughters. And that love was unconditional. She was always on his hip. She wanted to be just like him. That’s what hits me. It kept hitting me last night. I had to get out of the house. I was just crying non-stop. It just hit me different.”
Waiters remembers texting Bryant when he first entered the NBA. And to Waiters’ surprise, he received a text right back.
“He texted right back,” Waiters said. “He told me the little things, what to expect and what to do and try to maintain. He didn’t have to do that. As soon as I texted him, he texted me right back.”
The Heat played Monday’s home game against the Magic as scheduled, but the NBA announced that Tuesday’s game between the Lakers and Clippers at Staples Center is postponed. The Heat’s game against the Celtics on Tuesday was moved from 7:30 p.m. to an 8 p.m. start.
Anthony Chiang: 305-376-4991, @Anthony_Chiang