Dwyane Wade: 'We're Behind the 8-Ball' as Critical Season Begins for Miami Heat
MIAMI — The Miami Heat are racing against the clock and preaching the importance of patience.
The NBA's second-oldest team has no time to waste. Whatever potential this core holds, it needs to be realized now.
Both Father Time and finances loom as potential demolition tools, threatening to disband this group by the close of the 2015-16 campaign. Starters Dwyane Wade, Hassan Whiteside and Luol Deng are all entering the final year of their contracts, as are most members of the second team. It's nearly impossible to imagine the Heat having more than one chance to figure this out.
And yet, there's an air of serenity surrounding this team. No one is fretting over a choppy eight-game showing in the preseason that saw Miami's vaunted starting five make just two appearances together. Or that said quintet posted the worst plus-minus ratings on the team.
"We just got to play together more and figure it out together," Wade said recently. "It's just going to take a little time. You can't fast-track it as much as you want to. ... We're behind the eightball from a lot of teams."
Wade's comments cover two different sentiments, both of which are prevalent inside the home locker room at AmericanAirlines Arena.
The first being a statement of the obvious: This is very much a work in progress. All five starters suited up for the Heat last season, but they never shared the floor together. Just after Miami landed Goran Dragic at the February trade deadline, it lost Chris Bosh for the year to blood clots on his lung.
The chemistry that allows five-man units to function as one hasn't had the opportunity to grow organically. There's a difference between having a patch of soil and a handful of seeds versus running a fruitful, functional garden.
The Heat haven't left the planting stage, so of course there's nothing to harvest yet.
"Until you play while the popcorn's popping, it's a totally different situation," Bosh said. "... We have to be realistic. I know there's pressure on us to go out there and be good right away. That's never happened. We have to go through things. We have to talk."
As both Wade and Bosh can attest, new foundations need time to settle. When they joined forces with LeBron James in 2010, they stumbled their way to eight losses over their first 17 games. Then something clicked; they won 21 of their next 22 outings and eventually made their first of four consecutive NBA Finals trips together.
That's, of course, the best-case scenario for this situation, and the Heat don't need such a dramatic "aha" moment. They'd take incremental progress if they could get it.
"We have to see little improvements day by day," Bosh said. "That's a part of it. That's a part of being great, or trying to get to greatness, is that you look at everything, you try to improve and you improve."
It all sounds so simple—and perfectly cliched. Steady advancement, one day at a time, yields the ultimate outcome. It's the CliffsNotes version of every feel-good sports movie you've ever seen.
But real life is rarely simple, and this is no exception.
As Wade said, Miami is a bit behind the competition in terms of preparation. Complicating that issue is the fact that the Heat cannot afford a sluggish beginning. As much as clubs view the 82-game schedule as a marathon, Miami's demands a sprint out of the starting blocks.
If the Heat have any visions of capturing one of the Eastern Conference's top four seeds, they'll have to do their heavy lifting now. They kick off the campaign with 14 of their first 19 games at home; 12 of those 19 outings pit them against lottery teams from last season.
"We do have to have urgency," Bosh said. "... We're in a bit of a tough situation, but that's the league."
And the league doesn't wait around for clubs to figure themselves out.
That means Erik Spoelstra balancing the backcourt touches between the ball-dominant hands of Wade and Dragic. It's setting the right speed to utilize Dragic's quickness but also recognize Wade's odometer reading. It's finding offensive breathing room in an opening group built with streaky or non-existent three-point shooters. It's uniting players with different styles and motivations to pursue a common goal.
Bosh said the Heat need to "Just get a sense of how we're going to run and what style we're going to play when we're out there. We've been talking about pushing the pace and everything, but we need to get the ball where it needs to go. I think right now we're not playing together."
Miami's preseason venture proved light on insight.
All eyes would have been on surprise 2014-15 star (and 2016 unrestricted free agent) Whiteside, but calf and ankle injuries limited the 7-footer to three outings. He's such a critical part of what Miami can accomplish, both for the vertical spacing he adds as an alley-oop threat and the protection he provides at the rim. He's also a massive question mark with all of 67 NBA games and 32 starts under his belt.
The Heat didn't tip their hand at the offensive end. They played faster than last season (99.34 possessions per 48 minutes, up from 93.26) but they lost some efficiency (95.9 points per 100 possessions, down from 101.5) and couldn't hit the long ball (29.4 three-point percentage). They never found a backcourt leader, as both Wade (35.8 percent shooting) and Dragic (37.2) struggled mightily.
"They just need more time to work it through," Spoelstra said of his starters. "... There were some reads that I really liked; they were trying to make it work. That's all they need, just more time."
The glass-half-full crowd had to love the work put in by the Heat second-teamers, particularly veteran Gerald Green (team-high 17.8 points in 21.8 minutes per game) and sophomore Tyler Johnson (53.1 percent from the field, 50.0 from deep).
"We've got guys who can really play," reserve forward-center Amar'e Stoudemire said. "We're just working on getting cohesive and getting that type of chemistry. I think so far, we've shown flashes of being pretty good with that second unit."
If nothing else, Miami enters this season with a legitimate bench—something it severely lacked last season.
Green is, as Spoelstra likes to call him, an "ignitable" scorer, and he's defended at a high enough level to potentially play major minutes—especially if his shooting holds up. Josh McRoberts could be everyone's favorite teammate by season's end due to his penchant for passing. Rookie Justise Winslow is talented enough to do a little of everything, and the rest of the bench blends energetic youngsters and savvy vets.
Spoelstra has options now. He can build formidable reserve units and, even better, stagger his rotations to find the ideal complements for his starters. As for the players themselves, they should be protected against the various ailments that will inevitably surface.
"It's great to have veteran guys, because you're able to have that kind of leadership and things you need, but the bodies are [a] little different than having young guys on the team," said Wade, who's missed an average of 19.5 games over the past four seasons. "We're going to need everybody for sure."
The Heat have a ceiling that stretches deep into the playoff field, but they need a lot work out to realize their potential.
They need talent to trump contrasting play styles and differing incentives. They need the good fortune with health that they never found last season. They need snipers to emerge or Spoelstra to figure out how to coach around shooting deficiencies. They need rapid development of their prospects and delayed decline of their elder statesmen.
They need time for all their dominoes to drop, but they also need to remain cognizant of how quickly sand is filling the bottom of their hourglass.
That won't give them the option to fast-forward, of course. But starting with Wednesday's season-opener against Charlotte, rewinding isn't an option, either. As much as Miami's mix of faces new and old calls for patience, the demand for progress is even greater.
All quotes obtained firsthand. Unless otherwise noted, statistics used courtesy of Basketball-Reference.com and NBA.com. Salary information provided by Basketball Insiders.
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