The Heat are currently tied for the NBA’s fourth-worst record, as our 2016/17 Reverse Standings show, and the team will continue to be a little shorthanded on its upcoming road trip. According to Ira Winderman of The South Florida Sun Sentinel, Justise Winslow and Dion Waiters didn’t travel with the team to start the three-game trip to Denver, Utah, and Portland. Winslow is still dealing with a left wrist issue, while Waiters is sidelined with a groin injury. It’s not clear if both players will miss the entire road trip, but if the Heat continue to dig a deeper hole and slip in the standings, it will have an impact on the team’s approach leading up to this season’s trade deadline.
Here’s more from around the Southeast:
- While a trade isn’t necessarily the end goal for the Heat with Goran Dragic, it doesn’t hurt to be able to point to games like Monday’s if the team has to make a case for the point guard’s value, writes Winderman in another piece for The Sun Sentinel. Dragic posted 27 points, 17 assists, and just one turnover in Miami’s loss to Boston on Monday.
- The Hawks, who have lost three games in a row and six of seven, recently held a players-only meeting, according to Chris Vivlamore of The Atlanta Journal Constitution. “It was just reassuring everybody that we’ve got each other’s back,” one player said of the meeting. “Nobody is pointing fingers at each other. It’s just a matter of us figuring it out together.”
- The Hawks are one of eight NBA teams without a D-League affiliate this season, so they haven’t assigned any players to the D-League yet this season. However, the team will likely send rookie DeAndre’ Bembry down to get some playing time very soon, tweets Vivlamore. Bembry has only appeared in seven regular season contests for Atlanta so far, playing sparingly in those games.
- Ian Mahinmi made his Wizards debut over the weekend, but his troublesome knees continue to act up, as Chase Hughes of CSNMidAtlantic.com details. The veteran center, who signed a four-year, $64MM deal with Washington in July, missed Monday’s game and looks questionable for Wednesday.