The Miami Heat are preparing to open the regular season and the news and rumors have been ramping up.
Check out the latest buzz below.
Wade Ready to Opener
Star guard Dwyane Wade says that he’s excited for the start of the regular season as the Heat prepare to face the Washington Wizards on Wednesday night.
“When you go through a whole training camp and you go through eight games of preseason, we’re excited to get to the real thing,” Wade told NBA.com.
“We’re excited to see how much growth we’ve had since the first day of training camp. The regular season, especially early on, we’ve got a tough schedule [and] it’s going to test us, so we look forward to it.”
Wade says that he’s been playing well in the new offense, which includes more plays for himself.
“Early on I was just trying to see what the offense was about, seeing where I can get other guys shots and as we got deeper into the preseason, got deeper into training camp, coach started putting more individual things in for myself and Chris [Bosh],” Wade said. “I’m not worried about shots at all. I can get those.”
He also said that he'll be taking more 3-pointers.
“When I have my opportunities and it swings to me, I’m going to take it,” Wade said.
“I’m just going to continue to try [and] take good ones as much as possible. I think the biggest thing is…when you’re putting the work in, and you translate it to the game and you see it go in. Now it’s about just letting it go and being ready to shoot it. This preseason has been good for that, for my confidence with that and my teammates’ confidence in me as well, so it’s been good.”
Bosh Embracing Leadership Role
Chris Bosh has been working on stepping up and leading the Heat as the new number 1 option.
Bosh says that it’s hard for him to get into the role because he’s a self-described loner, but he’s looking for his own unique style of leadership.
“It has been a challenge,” Bosh told the Miami Herald. “I can’t duplicate what [LeBron] did. … He was a great leader, he is a great leader; guys following him easily.”
“I’m trying to put my own spin on it and bring my own personality to it, and that has been a difficult journey for me, but I’m learning every day,” Bosh added. “I’m trying to make sure I personally talk to guys all the time and just take pointers from other people and see how I can bring all that to the table.
“I force myself to talk every day,” Bosh said. “It’s not easy. It’s something that I always, always work on. My wife pushes me every day to work on that stuff. There is no hiding for me, so I might as well get it over with and talk and be social.”
Roster Set; Cole to Start?
The Heat’s roster has been set with 15 players.
Wade, Luol Deng, and Chris Bosh have been penciled in as starters. Josh McRoberts, who is expected to start at power forward, may miss the first couple games, with Udonis Haslem and Shawne Williams filling in.
The point guard position is most uncertain, with Mario Chalmers and Norris Cole both likely to get starts throughout the season. Rookie Shabazz Napier will also get some playing time.
The Palm Beach Post says that Cole appears to have the job for now.
“It would be a lifelong dream to come in on opening night as the starter,” Cole said.
“It would mean a lot. Any time you work hard, you want to be able to see results, and I’ve been able to see them during this preseason and over the years I’ve been here. The other players and coaches have been able to see that, too.”
Chris “Birdman” Andersen and Justin Hamilton are the other reserve big men.
Danny Granger will come off the bench at small forward. James Ennis and Shannon Brown are the other backcourt bench players.
ESPN Says Heat Can’t Compete at Top
ESPN’s NBA Countdown crew recently weighed in on the upcoming season during a media conference call, and took some time to talk about the Heat.
Doug Collins said that he can’t see any scenario where the Heat are competing with the Bulls and Cavaliers at the top of the Eastern Conference barring a major injury.
“I’ve got a lot of respect for Miami. I just -- when I look at their team, I say, you know what, there’s still a lot of questions with Norris Cole, Mario Chalmers being your point guard, still a lot of questions about how many games Dwyane Wade is going to be able to play at a high level because of the injury to his knee that he suffered, can Chris Bosh be back to that No. 1 option, Josh McRoberts and Luol Deng filling in, what kind of bench play they’re going to get?” Collins said.
“I know they’re going to be well prepared. I know they’re going to compete. I know they won’t beat themselves. I just don’t see them being in the class of those other two teams.”
“This is where your pride and professionalism kicks in, in particular for Chris Bosh and Dwyane Wade. They want to prove like, wow, LeBron was a leader and the MVP, that they weren’t just living off his fumes. That’s what’s going to drive them. I can be a first option if I’m Chris Bosh. I can put up the numbers that people feel like I wasn’t able to put up because I was sharing the basketball and sacrificing myself for championships,” added Jalen Rose.
“And for Dwyane Wade, already one of the top two guards that the league has seen, can he go back to being a guy that was blocking shots, getting steals, being active, playing multiple games a year?
New Era Has Arrived for Heat
MIAMI—Chris Bosh didn’t want this to happen.
He’s still going to embrace his newfound opportunity.
Make no mistake, the Miami Heat know that they are entering a new world, one that lacks widespread championship expectations and doesn’t feature the player generally considered the best in the game right now. LeBron James is gone, the Big 3 era is finished and the Heat — the franchise that has won the last four Eastern Conference titles — have to prove themselves all over again.
Bring it on, Bosh said.
“When we look back on it, it'll be a very special team because it was only a short period of time that we all had and it was a great four-year run,” Bosh said. “We’re at the point where we just leave it at that, that was a special team. It was special era, it’s over and we’re looking forward to starting something new.”
With James back in Cleveland, the Heat hopes now hinge on Bosh and Dwyane Wade, both of whom also were free agents this past summer. Wade announced his return to Miami by calling himself a “Heat lifer” in a social-media post, and the team built a marketing campaign around those words.
In short, Miami reminded fans that the team has typically welcomed challenge.
“Everyone in the organization has had enough time to get used to the idea that it’s going to be a different team,” Wade said. “It’s my 12th year here, we’ve had a lot of different teams. ... You come to training camp and you don’t really think about the year before or who’s not in here, you just try to focus on the guys who are here.”
There are plenty of new guys, too.
Ray Allen is undecided about where or if he'll play this season, but he’s no longer with the Heat. Shane Battier retired, Rashard Lewis isn’t back and James Jones followed James to Cleveland.
In their place: Luol Deng, Danny Granger and Josh McRoberts, all three expected to have big roles for Miami as this season goes along. Norris Cole returns and presumably will get starter minutes at point guard, with Mario Chalmers likely to play both guard spots. Up front, Chris Andersen and Udonis Haslem will help Bosh and McRoberts on the glass, but there’s also likely to be some adjusting as all the new pieces fall into place.
“We have a team that we know is going to compete,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said.
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Here’s what to know about the Heat this season:
WADE WATCH: Wade’s scoring average has dropped in each of the last five seasons — but then again, so have his field-goal attempts per game. With James gone, it certainly stands to reason that there will be more scoring opportunities for Wade. But he turns 33 this January, has had knee issues for years and has logged more than 32,000 minutes of regular-season and playoff time. How much he has left in the tank is a mystery.
3'S NEEDED: The Heat have embraced the 3-pointer, especially from corners. Who’s going to make them? Five of Miami’s six most-prolific 3-point shooters from the last four years are gone. Chalmers has made a team-best 498 3’s over the last four years, including playoffs, and Miami will need him to remain a threat.
BOSH‘S ROLE: Bosh had 92 double-doubles in his last two seasons in Toronto. He’s had 60, total, in his four regular-seasons with Miami. Moving him away from the rim obviously played a role in his decreased rebound numbers, but he knows he’ll need to get back to some semblance of that former form.
SPOELSTRA'S RECORD: The knock from critics on Spoelstra has been that anyone could have succeeded at the helm of Miami’s talent-rich roster over the last four seasons. But some of Spoelstra’s peers marveled over the job he did under big pressure, and besides, he averaged 45 wins in his first two years on the Miami sideline — without James.
LATE SURGE? The Heat play 23 of their final 36 games in the regular season against franchises that didn’t make the playoffs last season. While the playoff landscape will surely look different in 2015, it still means Miami could be set up to make a late-season charge.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
