Ring ceremony
Bosh adds assist to his resume: officiating the wedding of McRoberts
HOUSTON — Erik Spoelstra saw something special in the pairing well before others were considering such possibilities.
But, no, the Miami Heat coach did not see this latest Chris BoshJosh McRoberts collaboration coming.
Over the weekend, Bosh, the Hall of Fame former Heat forward, officiated at the wedding of McRoberts, his former Heat teammate .
“What a pleasure it was to stand up with my brother and his beautiful bride . . . as they became Mr. and Mrs. Josh McRoberts,” Bosh posted on Instagram. “First time ever officiating a wedding, and felt honored to do so. Incredibly special day!”
To Spoelstra, just another quintessential renaissance-man moment from a player who fasttracked fluency in Spanish during his Heat tenure, made himself a self-taught stage-worthy guitar performer in retirement, and this year authored a book about what he would tell his younger self, titled “Letters to a Young Athlete.”
Spoelstra said he learned of the latest Bosh-McRoberts collaboration when McRoberts attended Bosh’s induction to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame last month in Springfield, Mass.
“I saw J-Mac at the induction and he told me about his wedding and how CB was going to be officiating it. I thought he was kidding, at first,” Spoelstra told the South Florida Sun Sentinel ahead of Thursday night’s exhibition against the Houston Rockets at the Toyota Center. “But they have a great friendship.
“With CB, it shouldn’t be a surprise about anything that he’s able to do. He has incredible versatility and I’m sure he did an amazing job.”
There was a point when Spoelstra thought the ultimate Bosh-McRoberts collaboration would come in the Heat lineup, with McRoberts added in the 2014 offseason, the same juncture when LeBron James left in free agency to return to the Cleveland Cavaliers and Bosh re-upped with the Heat on maximum contract.
Instead, McRoberts’ Heat tenure was ultimately stalled by a series of injuries, with Bosh then permanently forced away from the game in the middle off 2015-16 due to a recurrence of blood clots.
“I thought that dynamic between the two of them was going to be really cool and special,” Spoelstra said, as the Heat completed preparations for Thursday’s exhibition. “I thought it was really unique. It was something we were planning on.
“J-Mac got hurt in that game in Phoenix. The two of them played brilliantly off each other. You’re talking about both really skilled, unselfish. They could both stretch to the 3-point line. They both were big. So either one of them could play center, either one of them could play power forward, and have that agility.
“And I thought we had a great game that game, and that was the game that J-Mac broke his foot. I thought we had a chance to start turning the corner at that point. And then once J-Mac got healthy, CB went out, so we were never able to see it.”
To a degree, Spoelstra said Bosh-McRoberts was ahead of its time. Instead, with Bosh already sidelined, the Heat dealt McRoberts to the Dallas Mavericks in July 2017 in a salary dump. McRoberts would play two games for the Mavs before he was waived in February 2018, in what ultimately would prove to be the end of his NBA career.
“A lot of versatility and continuity you’re seeing out of bigs right now, I think we would have been able to do that on steroids with the two of them back then,” Spoelstra said, “and that would have been very different in this league at that time.”
Preseason plans: Spoelstra emphasized Thursday that the bulk of the Heat’s continuity could wind up being developed away from the exhibitions, on the preseason practice court.
“We want to continue to focus on our system, our habits, and continue to learn. It’s still early for us,” he said, with the Heat to open the regular season on Oct. 21 against the defending-champion Milwaukee Bucks at FTX Arena.
“It’s been going well. We’ve been able to do a lot on our practice court. We’ll continue to try to take advantage of practices and these preseason games. But I like the progress.”