Miami Heat Rumors | Hoops Rumors

Heat’s Luke Babbitt May Be Out Two Weeks

December 2nd, 2016 at 3:28pm CST by Arthur Hill

The injury-ravaged Heat got more bad news Thursday night when forward Luke Babbitt suffered a hip-flexor strain, writes Ira Winderman of The Sun-Sentinel.

Miami coach Erik Spoelstra describes the injury as similar to the one that has sidelined shooting guard Dion Waiters for at least two weeks.

“Probably a little bit similar to Dion,” Spoelstra said. “We’ll find out more. But it’s a hip-flexor strain. It’s not a contusion. So we’ll evaluate him.”

The seventh-year forward is averaging 4.2 points and 1.8 rebounds through 19 games, playing about 16 minutes per night. He has been in and out of the starting lineup as Spoelstra searches for the best combinations.

Babbitt was traded to Miami in July after spending the past three seasons in New Orleans. He is earning a little more than $1.2MM and will be a free agent when the season ends.

The Heat may be down to nine players for Saturday’s game after Josh Richardson was sent back to Miami on Thursday for treatment on his sore ankle. Waiters didn’t make the trip, nor did Justise Winslow, who has an injured wrist.

McGruder, McGee Receive Partial Guarantees

December 2nd, 2016 at 11:17am CST by Luke Adams

As our schedule of salary guarantee dates shows, four NBA players were originally believed to be on track to receive partial guarantees if they remained under contract through December 1. Two of those players – Briante Weber and Okaro White – were waived by the Heat earlier in the year, but the other two are still on their respective teams’ rosters.

The minimum-salary contract for Rodney McGruder, another member of the Heat, called for his partial guarantee to increase to $400K on Thursday, leaving only about $144K in non-guaranteed money on his deal. The rookie shooting guard has been a regular part of Miami’s rotation so far, averaging 22.9 minutes per game, so he looks like a safe bet to remain on the roster for the season, given his role and his contract situation.

Meanwhile, JaVale McGee‘s minimum-salary contract with the Warriors reportedly called for his partial guarantee to increase from $250K to $500K on Thursday. McGee has only played sparingly for Golden State in the early going, but he has a unique skill set on a Warriors team that lacks a traditional rim-protecting center. That could mean an increased role for him later this season, though his roster spot may not be entirely safe if the team finds a more reliable veteran center via free agency or trade.

So far, there have been no indications that either the Heat or Warriors pushed back their guarantee dates for McGruder or McGee, respectively, so we’ll assume both players received their increased partial guarantees unless we hear otherwise. Their salaries for 2016/17 will become fully guaranteed if they’re still under contract on January 10.

Richardson Returns To Miami For Treatment

December 1st, 2016 at 10:39pm CST by Dana Gauruder

Guard Josh Richardson returned to Miami during the Heat’s current three-game road trip to get treatment for his sore ankle, Ira Winderman of the South Florida Sun Sentinel reports. Richardson suffered the injury against the Celtics on Monday. Miami is already playing without two of its top wings, Justise Winslow and Dion Waiters, due to injuries. “It’s an easy decision for us,” coach Erik Spoelstra told Winderman and other beat writers. “His ankle is really sore. He has a bunch of other little, minor things going on. So we just wanted to go back, get his body right, feel right for the next three days, four days. We’ll reevaluate him then.”

Dion Waiters Expected To Miss At Least Two Weeks

November 30th, 2016 at 5:59pm CST by Arthur Hill

Heat guard Dion Waiters will be out of action for at least two weeks with a Pectineus tear, the team announced on its website.

Waiters, who was diagnosed today after an MRI, has been sidelined for more than a week with what was thought to be a groin ailment. He didn’t accompany the team on its current three-game road trip. Coach Erik Spoelstra said Waiters’ condition will be re-evaluated in two weeks.

Waiters was one of several free agents signed by the Heat this summer. He agreed in late July to a two-year, $6MM contract with a player option on the second season. The 24-year-old has appeared in 16 games, all starts, with averages of 14.2 points, 4.0 assists and 3.4 rebounds per night. He is shooting 38.4% from the field and 34.4% on 3-pointers.

The pain of losing Waiters is lessened somewhat by the recent return of Wayne Ellington, who missed the first five weeks of the season after suffering a quad injury in Miami’s final preseason game.

Heat Notes: Winslow, Waiters, Dragic

November 30th, 2016 at 9:00am CST by Luke Adams

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.

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.

Heat Still Recovering From Loss Of Wade

November 28th, 2016 at 5:10pm CST by Eddie Scarito

The Heat are still struggling to recover from the loss of Dwyane Wade via free agency this past summer and are likely headed to the 2017 Draft lottery as a result, Marc D’Amico of NBA.com writes.

Heat Notes: Whiteside, Ellington, McGruder, Fizdale

November 27th, 2016 at 10:24am CST by Arthur Hill

Heat center Hassan Whiteside is ready to go from target to recruiter in the free agent market, according to Ira Winderman of The Sun Sentinel. Whiteside was one of the top names in free agency over the summer, attracting interest from several organizations before re-signing with the Heat for $98MM over four years. Now he wants to be part of the effort to bring other big names to Miami. “When you start being around those guys a lot more, when you’re making the All-Star Game and when you’re making those different events where you get to meet the best players and hang around, that’s especially when you can build a bond with a lot of those guys,” Whiteside said. “I think that’s where a lot of recruitment comes from.”

There’s more news out of Miami:

Wayne Ellington should return soon from the quad injury that has sidelined him since the final preseason game, Winderman writes in a separate piece. The Heat signed Ellington in July to a two-year deal worth more than $12MM to bolster their outside shooting.
The Heat’s injury problems have created more playing time for Rodney McGruder, writes Manny Navarro of The Miami Herald. The rookie guard played more than 30 minutes twice this week, including some late-game experience. “It just puts you in those situations earlier than you ever would have expected,” he said. “I’m in a great situation with great teammates, a great coaching staff that believes in all of us. It makes it that much easier to go out there and play. For me, I just try to stay the course, and the minutes I do have — whatever they are — I treat them like crunch-time minutes. Because whenever you get out there those are important minutes.”
Grizzlies head coach David Fizdale says work ethic was the most important thing he learned during his time as an assistant under Erik Spoelstra, Navarro adds in the same story. Fizdale spent eight seasons in Miami before taking the Memphis job over the offseason. “I would put him against anybody in the league from the standpoint of preparation, time spent on watching film, really time spent on deep thought on what motivates his team, what guys to play,” Fizdale said of Spoelstra. “He’s a forward-thinking guy, really open minded, forward-thinking guy.”

Whiteside's Road To Stardom Provides Lesson

November 26th, 2016 at 1:15pm CST by Dana Gauruder

Heat center Hassan Whiteside‘s winding road to NBA stardom provides hope for other players scrapping to make the league, Pistons coach and president of basketball operations Stan Van Gundy told the media earlier this week. Whiteside played 19 games for the Kings his first two seasons and wound up in the D League, China and Lebanon before resurfacing with the Heat, where he emerged as one of the league’s top centers. Whiteside, who re-signed with the Heat for four years and $98MM over the summer, is averaging 16.9 points and a league-best 15.1 rebounds. “Hassan Whiteside is a great lesson for other players and a great lesson for those of us making personnel decisions in the league, especially with big guys,” Van Gundy said. “Sometimes it doesn’t happen overnight. Hassan Whiteside right now is playing as well as any big man in the league. His numbers are mindboggling.”

Heat Notes: Bosh, Cap, Lineup, Wade

November 25th, 2016 at 11:48am CST by Luke Adams

If Chris Bosh doesn’t appear in a game by February 9 and an independent doctor selected by the NBA and NBPA declares him medically unfit to continue his career, the Heat could remove his current and future cap hits from their books. That much has been well documented. However, as Barry Jackson of The Miami Herald details, in that scenario, the Heat would unfortunately have some motivation to root against Bosh making a comeback for another team.

According to Jackson, if Bosh were to play in 25 games for another team starting in 2017/18, his cap charges would return to Miami’s books. The Heat wouldn’t be required to remove salary to get back under the cap, but they could be subject to a very expensive luxury tax bill with Bosh’s $25MM+ salary back on the payroll, and his $26MM cap hit for 2018/19 could prevent the team from having any cap room during the 2018 offseason. In that scenario, the Heat might be stuck in a position where they have to shed significant salary via trade in order to avoid a mammoth tax bill, so the team might be inclined to take a cautious approach to spending in 2017 even if Bosh’s cap hits are removed.

Here’s more on the Heat:

As Jackson observes, if Bosh’s 2016/17 cap charge is removed from the Heat’s payroll between February 9 and February 23, the team could be in a position to take on salary at this season’s trade deadline. It’s not clear how quickly cap relief would be granted to Miami, but Jackson suggests there’s a “good chance” of it happening before the deadline.
In a separate article for the Herald, Jackson notes that Heat head coach Erik Spoelstra is considering possible lineup and rotation changes in order to kick-start the club’s struggling offense. “I’ll look at everything right now to get us more organized, get guys comfortable and get them to their strengths,” Spoesltra said. “Everything is on the table.”
Count Stan Van Gundy among those who thought it was “sad” to see Dwyane Wade leave the Heat this summer instead of finishing his career with the franchise, writes Ira Winderman of The South Florida Sun Sentinel. “It’s the way it is now,” Van Gundy said. “Very few guys, very, very, very few guys are going to finish where they start. But it certainly looked for a long time like he would have been one of the guys who would have finished there.”

Haslem Knew Fizdale Was Going To Be A Good Head Coach

November 24th, 2016 at 10:02am CST by ChrisCrouse

Udonis Haslem always knew David Fizdale, who left the Heat to coach the Grizzlies during the offseason, was going to be a head coach in the league, as the Sun Sentinel passes along. “He was definitely head coach material. I expected him to leave a lot earlier,” Haslem said. The power forward added that Fizdale is players-coach and he can easily relate to what players have gone through to make it to the NBA.