South Florida Sun-Sentinel (Sunday)
Not a time for any excuses
Haslem believes team is ready to handle restart without issue
He didn’t exactly phrase it as such, but Udonis Haslem has essentially told his Miami Heat teammates that by the time they arrive July 8 at Disney World they had better be prepared to swap their excuses for Mickey ears.
“It’s not the most ideal situation,” the Heat captain said of the NBA’s planned restart next month at the Wide World of Sports Complex amid the coronavirus pandemic. “It’s nothing that we could have prepared for. We’ve seen nothing like this in sports in my lifetime, so to sit around and complain about it doesn’t do any good.
“Can’t speak for everybody else, but my guys are going to go out there and be ready to get it done.”
Speaking on ESPN’s “The Jump,” Haslem said that if mental toughness is what is required for what could be up to three months in quarantine just outside of Orlando, it could give his team a leg up.
“I mean, I like our chances just as good as anybody, or better,” he said as play is scheduled to resume July 30. “I think we probably have a better chance than anybody.
“Now it’s mental. When you talk about a mentally tough team, I don’t think there’s any more mentally tough team in the NBA. So I like our chances.”
The Heat will resume play at 41-24 and as the No. 4 playoff seed in the Eastern Conference. They are already assured a playoff berth ahead of the eight games that first will complete the regular season.
Haslem, 40, said the isolation scenario actually could work in favor of the Heat’s youthful base of Bam Adebayo, Tyler Herro,
Kendrick Nunn, Derrick Jones Jr. and Duncan Robinson.
“They got their video games and their Wi-Fi, so I think they’ll be all right,” Haslem said with a smile. “Listen, as long as they got the “Fortnite,” however you spell it, and the 2K, they’ll be all right.”
For the team’s veterans such as himself, Jimmy Butler, Andre Iguodala, Jae Crowder and Goran Dragic, it might be a different story, Haslem said.
“I’m going to have to be the guy that has to figure it out,” he said. “Jimmy’s going to have to figure it out [too]. Jimmy’s a guy who doesn’t play much golf, and there’s no country saloons around for him to go dancing. I don’t know if they got that on campus.
“So guys like myself and Jimmy, us boring, plain guys, we’re going to have to figure something out.”
That doesn’t mean Haslem won’t have plenty on his plate, having signed up to join former Heat championship teammate LeBron James’ More Than a Vote nonprofit to help fight voter suppression.
“We understand we’re not politicians, we’re not policy experts, but we’re real people in this community we are invested in,” Haslem said, with the Heat to share the same Disney hotel as James’ Los Angeles Lakers.
“And we have a platform to protect the rights of these people. They need somebody they can trust, and they don’t always trust the people they’re voting with.
“But they can get behind athletes, they can get behind entertainers. They’ll listen to us. They’ll trust us. So we have that platform where we’re going to take advantage of it now.”
Haslem empathized how some had felt the process was not worth the effort but said he has come around to the importance of making his voice heard at the polls.
“I was one of those people and I just had to educate myself,” he said. “So to those people I would say I was one of those people. I understand the process a lot more. I understand the absentee process, I understand the process of voting.
“And that’s why it’s so important for me, specifically, to start in my city and all the other athletes and entertainers to start in theirs as well.”