Miami Heat Rumors: Injuries to James and Wade Will Only Strengthen Title Hopes
It may be hard to believe, but the absence of LeBron James and Dwyane Wade will be a good thing for the long-term goals of the Heat.
According to Ira Winderman of the South Florida Sun Sentinel, the Heat will be without stars James and Wade for at least Thursday's game against the Atlanta Hawks. The Heat must take advantage of the positives to come from this. That means that they need to be conservative in bringing each man back.
Here's the thing, though. What's good and what's bad may or may not show tonight. The Hawks are a good team that handed the Heat their only loss of the season thus far. The fact that they're now taking on a team that will not have two stars probably means that the Hawks will win.
But the goal of the Heat is not to win some random game in the first week of January. No, their goal is to win the championship. That should be the goal of any team, and it certainly should be the case with a team that lost the NBA Finals a season ago.
If the Heat are going to win a championship in a shortened season, they are going to need to develop a rotation of about eight to 10 players for the regular season. The problem is that Wade and James eat up a lot of minutes. So, the players down the bench that need to develop don't get the quality minutes to do that.
They're going to get that opportunity now. Even if it means an extra loss or two on the Heat's record, this will end up being a good thing.
It's hard to imagine that anyone on the Heat is worried about making the playoffs or qualifying as a high seed. That's the only time when winning a couple extra games will really make much of a difference over the course of 66 games.
The fact that new players will get a chance to log quality minutes will be a good thing. They will get a chance to develop and figure out what it's like to play quality minutes. When the playoffs roll around, they will be more equipped to fill in if Wade or James is ever banged up, struggling or need a breather.
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