Pat Riley was non-committal about whether the Heat would be active before the trade deadline or be willing to take on contracts that run through next season, Barry Jackson of the Miami Herald writes. “The important thing is we are a forward-thinking team,” Riley said. “We are not going to be thinking backwards. We’re not going to have any regrets. We love what we have with our young players and we know assets, whatever assets we have in the future are going to help us rebuild, whether it’s picks, whether it’s personnel, whether it’s [cap] room. I’m always thinking down the future, down the road.”
Here’s more from Miami:
- The Heat are off to an abysmal start to the season, but Riley remains optimistic about his team’s chances this year, Jackson relays in the same piece “I’ve been through this drill before,” Riley said. “We have great faith and great belief in our young players. Our young players have been not forced but put up into a position where they now have to deliver timely times during the game, sustaining drives, stopping drives, making shots at the end, making free throws. They’ll get it. It doesn’t happen overnight.”
- Goran Dragic is the type of point guard the Heat need and trading him away doesn’t solve their issues, Ira Winderman of the Sun Sentinel argues in his latest mailbag. Winderman believes that Miami needs Dragic’s play-making ability and once he returns from ankle injury, the team will show improvement.
- Hassan Whiteside believes the team’s rough start is a result of a tough schedule to begin the season, Shandel Richardson of the Sun Sentinel writes. “We haven’t played any bad teams,” Whiteside said. “We played all playoff teams … We’re not losing to bad teams. We’re right there. It makes no sense to get down on ourselves.” Whiteside, who re-signed with the Heat on a four year, $98MM deal over the summer, is enjoying personal success this season, averaging career highs in points, rebounds and free throws made per game.
Whiteside’s issues with paying attention to detail, and his lack of effort at times, are why this team has been losing games. He is a stat chaser, which obviously doesn’t help the team in certain situations. He needs to bring the same effort and energy at all times when he is on the floor. That isn’t the only issue with this team, but is one of the good reasons why the heat keep losing so many close games. This team has shown they’re capable. They just need to finish games with a W, b/c it gets late fast in this league, and nobody is going to feel sorry for you, or give you an award for almost winning games. This is a top 5 defense. That’s going to keep us in games regardless. Now it’s little details they have to clean up to come away with wins in these close ones. As Whiteside said, the schedule has been tough, so it’s encouraging to be where we’ve been, but it doesn’t matter anymore when you lose. You have to build off that. Hopefully, things will be smoother offensively when Dragic comes back…but this team has a black hole at the 4. That has to eventually be addressed
well yeah Whiteside that makes sense your losing to good teams and not playing bad teams = Heat are not a good team
The simplicity in that philosophy is pretty funny. If you watch the games, you would see this team is capable. They have one of the best defenses in the league. Most every game they’ve lost was winnable. Obviously, there are certain issues that are the reason why they haven’t come away with Ws, but that doesn’t make them a bad team.
Notice, without Justice Winslow, who can’t shoot a lick, they won 2 straight. I know about his intangibles but he just can’t shoot.