Heat newer, fresher and hopefully better
This was after the last practice of preseason on Tuesday. Heat rookie Tyler Herro, so new, so hopeful, remained on the court after everyone else finished, one by one. Herro kept going to a spot in the corner, shooting shot after shot. Five in a row. Ten. Swish. Swish. Swish.
Off to the side, as he walked to the locker room in a Herro practice jersey after an interview, Jimmy Butler said, “Here we go.”
Tuesday was a good day around the Heat to talk about first nights in the NBA. Butler came off the bench his first game, as he did his entire rookie season in Chicago. Erik Spoelstra was in New York, in Madison Square Garden against the Knicks, his first night as Heat coach.
“I remember how fast everything
went,’’ Spoelstra said of that 2008 opener. “I think I used 11 players in the first quarter. You had to question my rotation. What a disservice to the players.”
He stands here at the final Heat practice before Wednesday night’s opener against Memphis.
“I definitely felt like the youngest coach in the league that night,” said Spoelstra, who was 38 that night.
This is something to remember as this different Heat season tips off. Herro, fittingly and symbolically, will be the first Heat rookie to start on opening night since Mario Chalmers and Michael Beasley did that same 2008 season Spoelstra opened as coach.
That’s 11 years ago. That says a few things. First, there haven’t been a lot of impactful Heat rookies. Second, it’s part of the team’s philosophy that rookies are seen and not heard.
Finally, Herro starting supports the new and fresh feel to a franchise that’s done everything to expunge the last couple of disappointing years from view.
“Last year was last year — this is a new chapter,’’ Spoelstra said in a way he might on the eve of any season. It just all feels new this season.
Gone to Portland is the mystery of Hassan Whiteside. Gone from view on opening night are Dion Waters and James Johnson, each of them disciplined in ways that tell of the investment mistakes they were the past couple of seasons. The Heat, you see, have tried to reclaim the culture that got away from them of late. That’s important. Let’s also remember this culture has won just one playoff series since 2007 without LeBron James.
So, while culture matters, talent matters more. It’s all new, too. It should be better, getting the team into the playoffs while building around Butler. It’s his team. He won’t say that, but he’s the top talent and biggest personality on a team for the first time in his career.
In Chicago, Butler played on Derrick Rose’s team. In Minnesota, it was on Karl Anthony-Towns’ team, and in Philadelphia he was behind Joel Embiid and Ben Simmons. It’s the panoramic view of possibility that’s interesting behind Butler. Nothing is as it was. Bam Adebayo has a centerpiece role at big man rather than a shared one with Whiteside. Justise Winslow starts at point guard, either because he’s good there or simply to hope he actually has a position. Goran Dragic, at 33, coming off the bench in a defined role and, perhaps, a closing one.
Herro became the preseason sensation with his shooting. But the Heat never have embraced shooters who are just shooters. Wayne Ellington was the latest in a forgotten line of them that links James Jones to Jason Kapono. Herro can do more than them, as his ball-handling showed in preseason. But how much more? And, at 19, can he play NBA defense? The Heat don’t have much practice with rookies. Chalmers had moments. Beasley gave anecdotes, few of them on the basketball court. You have to go back to Dwyane Wade in 2003 to find a rookie of real impact.
Herro keeps shooting long after the other players have left the court. This team had grown stale by the end of last year. Now it has a new look at Herro’s shots keep showing. Wednesday begins to answer the bigger question: Just who are they?