35 years later, finals bring inaugural Heat member full circle
DENVER — The 2023 NBA Finals, in a unique way, take the Miami Heat full circle.
At the team’s South Florida broadcast headquarters, Ron Rothstein, the team’s inaugural coach, is analyzing the team’s playoff run on Bally Sports Sun.
And in Denver, Scott Hastings, a member of Rothstein’s first-year Heat team in 1988-89, is doing the same for the Denver Nuggets’ broadcast outlet.
What goes around has come around.
“It’s kind of weird,” Hastings said as he prepared for his Nuggets broadcast responsibilities ahead of Thursday’s Game 1 at Ball Arena, “because Miami still has a huge soft spot in my heart. And I was all in on their playoff run last year after the Nuggets lost to Golden State.”
Between his television work and Denver radio show, Hastings has been a face of the Nuggets for more than two decades.
With Hastings turning 63 on Saturday, Denver now is home for the 6-foot-11 veteran of 11 NBA seasons, the final two with the Nuggets.
But Miami assuredly hardly was the worst of places at 28 to spend a winter, even amid what turned into a 15-67 expansion season.
“If The Clevelander would remember me and invite me over to their giant patio anymore and let me have a cold drink in the afternoon, it certainly would bring back memories,” he said of the South Beach institution, poised to perhaps do that when he travels with the Nuggets’ media party for Games 3 and 4 of the Finals at the Kaseya Center.
“I still have fond memories of the team,” Hastings said. “This series, it’s cool for me because I know how
this franchise, Denver, has suffered, and it’s been a half century with some really good players who have come through. Miami, we started it in ‘88, and Miami already has been to the Finals as many times as they have been [seven]. And this is Denver’s first.”
For the Kansas native and University of Arkansas product, it is a series that feels like home.
“For me, it’s two of my favorite places in the world,” he said.
Now in his 29th year of calling NBA games, including time with TNT and ESPN, Hastings has been involved with the Nuggets for 27 years. During the season, he is the team’s color analyst on television. During these NBA Finals, which are limited to ABC’s national coverage, he is contributing wrap-around coverage, similar to what Rothstein, Eric Reid and John Crotty are offering on Bally Sports in South Florida.
“Now I’m doing radio color-analyst work.” Hastings said of the series. “I’ll be heading down there on the 5th.”
Among Hastings’ teammates during that inaugural Heat ride in 1988-89 were emerging players such as Rony Seikaly, Grant Long and Kevin Edwards, but also end-of-the-line types such as Pearl Washington, Rory Sparrow and Pat Cummings.
“Well, there were a whole bunch of slugs that were second-fiddle and third-fiddle guys in other places that came together,” Hastings said with a laugh. “But I’ve never had a problem with ownership, and the Arison family [with patriarch Ted Arison the owner at that time]. I thought they were great.
“Ronnie tried to beat that team into shape. And he got them going for a little while.”
The process, Hastings said, was not always easy.
“Super-individualistic, look-out-for-themselves guys,” Hastings said of the team’s initial management suite. “And then Pat Riley made it a family.”
To Hastings, the presence of Heat captain Udonis Haslem, now in his 20th season, in these Finals, personifies the commitment to Riley’s Heat rosters that was not there during the franchise’s early years.
“What Pat Riley has allowed for Haslem to do, no other franchise does,” Hastings said. “It’s, ‘See you later. Thanks for the good times. Good luck.’ And to have him around still on the bench, he’s not guarding Nikola Jokic 40 minutes a game for seven games.
“But to me, what Riley’s done for the franchise should be a model for almost every franchise.
“We didn’t have that back then.” What Hastings did have and what he still has is the No. 44 jersey he wore during that inaugural Heat season 35 years ago.
“I put it on last year. I wore it last year for the playoffs, for Miami,” he said of the Heat’s run within one victory of the 2022 NBA Finals. “Let me just say this, and don’t make fun of me — it’s a little bit tighter than it was however many years ago.”