Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Wade returns from hamstring injury; Whiteside still sidelined
OKLAHOMA CITY — Dwyane Wade no longer is hamstrung, with the Miami Heat now closer to whole.
The veteran guard was back in the rotation in Friday night’s game against the Oklahoma City Thunder at Chesapeake Energy Arena, entering with 4:02 to play in the first quarter.
Wade had missed the previous five games with a strained left hamstring sustained in the March 10 victory over the Washington Wizards at AmericanAirlines Arena.
Wade, 36, said he appreciated the need for caution.
“It’s been fine. It’s not my first rodeo with anything happening. So it’s been fine,” he said of the rehab process before converting his first shot against the Thunder, a 22-foot jumper. “Just been working with the trainers, doing everything they’ve asked me to do. They know me.
“I know my body as well as I can. But it’s tough at this time of the year, because you don’t have a lot of practice time, neither. So you just try to do as much as you can, away from practice, and try to get better.”
Asked if the injury required a two week absence or if it was a case of erring on the side of prudence, Wade hedged.
“A good question,” he said. “I don’t know. I feel good. Obviously we have a certain protocol here of how we do things.
“I told the coaches that I felt good [Thursday]. I had three good days in a row. I felt good. So today, this is my first day going through shootaround with the second unit.”
Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said he was encouraged at the shootaround.
“I’ve talked to Jay [Sabol, the team trainer]. I’ve just kept open eyes and open mind with Dwyane,” Spoelstra said. “I kept on seeing if he was going to go through the next drill. So he went through the whole thing.
“I was very happy to see him out there, obviously.”
Center Hassan Whiteside remains sidelined, with the Thunder game making it seven missed games with what now is being classified as a strained left hip flexor.
“It seems like he’s been on that bike for two hours,” Spoelstra said of Whiteside attempting to pedal his way to health.
Guard Goran Dragic said the progress with Wade is encouraging and saw no problem working in the franchise’s all-time scoring leader.
“I think it’s not going to be a problem,” he said. “He’s smart enough. He knows how to choose his spots and we know how to put him in in our offense. Before he got hurt, we proved that we can play with everybody together.”
Spoelstra said he is not concerned about teammates deferring to Wade, as had been the initial case when Wade returned to the Heat from the Cleveland Cavaliers at the Feb. 8 NBA trading deadline.
“There was only a couple, two or three games, where Dwyane really had to go in the bag and turn back the clock,” Spoelstra said. “But Dwyane wants guys to grow and gain more confidence.”
Spoelstra said Wade, 36, still has plenty to offer.
“He’s going to make this whole group better and that’s not just by him taking the last shot,” Spoelstra said.
Rodney’s roll
Rodney McGruder’s school, Kansas State, not only eliminated Bam Adebayo’s Kentucky Wildcats on Thursday night in the NCAA Tournament, but it came on a night when Heat teammates Kelly Olynyk (Gonzaga) and Luke Babbitt (Nevada) also saw their schools eliminated.
“Bam skipped the bus this morning,” McGruder said with a smile at shootaround. “He came over on the early bus. He didn’t want to see my face. So I hadn’t really had a chance to talk my K-State trash to him.”
McGruder, who went undrafted out of K-State in 2013, said strong leadership was his takeaway from the program.
“I was just telling one of my college teammates, ‘It’s crazy. My coach my three years at K-State was in the Final Four last year [South Carolina’s Frank Martin] and my coach my last year [Bruce Weber] is in the Elite 8.’”