With traditional roles and without elite 3-point shooters, starters buck NBA trends.
MIAMI — Get ready to watch one of the most backward title hopefuls in the NBA.
After leading the wave of small ball and ambiguous player positions, the Miami Heat go into this season with a traditional starting lineup that features a giant center and four guys who mostly fifit the framework of classic roles. While many elite teams are fifiring away with 3-pointers, this one will merely dabble in them. If this team wins, it likely will not do so the way everyone else is.
“You have to be trendsetters in some kind of way,” Chris Bosh said.
There is no question the Heat’s roster is substantively stronger than last year when they fifinished 37-45 and out of the playoffffs, but how that talent will function is a mystery. The fifirst meaningful glimpses of what this group can do will come in tonight’s season opener against Charlotte. Miami coach Erik Spoelstra expects to have all 15 players available, giving him all the necessary components to display his design.
It is an intriguing collection of parts that includes big men who play outside and smaller players who work in the post. Their most dangerous scorer, Dwyane Wade, utilizes what he describes as “an old-man game.” The amorphous second unit seems to employ a starkly difffffffffffferent style than the fifirst. CORAL GABLES — For the Hurricanes, it has been a 72-hour stretch unlike any in recent memory.
They suffffered the worst loss in program history. Quarterback Brad Kaaya and leading receiver Rashawn Scott were hurt. Coach Al Golden was fifired. And standout cornerback Artie Burns is away from the team after his mother, Dana Smith, died of a heart attack early Tuesday.
On Friday, they will board a flflight to Durham, N.C., to play 22nd-ranked Duke.
That seemed like a long way offff Tuesday as the team prayed under the sun, breaking the huddle by saying “amen” and then “family.” Larry Scott, in his fifirst news
While Cleveland builds its aspirations on LeBron James’ shoulders, Golden State rides MVP Stephen Curry and a host of veterans drive San Antonio, much of Miami’s success figures to hinge on former NBA outcast Hassan Whiteside, who has been in town less than a year and has fewer than 82 games on his record.
Yet, there is widespread confidence that this plan will work. The league’s annual survey of general managers had Miami as a top-four team in the Eastern Conference, many analysts hold up the Heat as a legitimate threat to Cleveland, and no one scoffed when team President Pat Riley publicly set the target on winning a championship.
“If it’s not done right, it could look bad — bad as in still winning games, but not the way we want to,” Wade said. “I know if it’s done right, it can be real good. But I don’t know which one we’re going to get yet. I’m excited to see what happens.”
Most of the curiosity centers around Whiteside. He had been out of the league nearly two years when Miami plucked him from the D-League early last season, and by Janu- ary he was dropping monster numbers. From the time he asserted himself in the rotation through the end of the year, Whiteside averaged 13.7 points, 11.5 rebounds and 2.9 blocks per game — highlighted by a triple-double in less than 25 minutes against the Bulls.
The question is whether he will extend that progress or fall back into the pitfalls that nearly cost him his career. The allure of unrestricted free agency, where he might command an $80 million-$100 million deal at the end of the season, stands as a massive incentive for him to stay on track.
“I wonder what y’all are going to be saying a year from now,” Whiteside said on Media Day. “We’re going to see. Each year I get better and better, so we’ll see what you say a year from now.”
Then there is the 3-point shooting, or lack thereof. The final four teams in last year’s playoffs were the top four in percentage of scoring total derived from 3-pointers. Nearly 40 percent of Houston’s field goal attempts were 3s, followed by the Cavaliers at 33.4 percent.
Meanwhile, the Heat got 21.5 percent of their points off 3s and had the seventh-worst accuracy in the league at 33.5 percent. Bosh led them by hitting 37.5 percent, and Deng was next at 35.5. The only proven long-range threat they added in the offseason was Gerald Green, a career 36.8 percent shooter.
“While there may not be the type of 3-point shooting that will be competing in a 3-point shooting contest, you don’t want to leave some of our guys open,” Spoelstra said. “They’ve had enough on their résumés to make enough shots that hurt you, especially at the appropriate times.
“We’ll try to feed our guys as much confidence as possible and see if we can have some career-high shooting levels. Some of it will be 3-point shooting, but I’m not absolutely married to our shots being 3-point shots. We’re going to leverage the strengths of this team.”
Those strengths will determine the course of the season, but what they are is difficult to ascertain at this point. Even with little to draw from a lackluster preseason, this group screams potential. Reading the nameplates above the lockers sounds like the roster of a contender, and the Heat’s endeavor to live up to those lofty ambitions starts now.