- 23 hours ago
Miami Heat Reporter for the Miami Herald, Anthony Chiang joins the show to talk about the Miami Heat Offseason, Tyler Herro's injury, and Pat Riley wanting Nikola Jokić or Giannis Antetokounmpo?
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00:00by an Anthony Chang, Miami Heat reporter from the Miami Herald.
00:04What's going on, dude?
00:04Thanks for the time today.
00:06Of course.
00:06How are you guys?
00:07We're good.
00:08We're good.
00:08I'm confused.
00:09I'm a little confused, to be honest with you,
00:12because all the things that Pat said have been kind of inconsistent
00:19with what they've done the last couple of years,
00:21and then some of the guys that they're talking about bringing in,
00:26and also when he said the main thing is, you know, games played,
00:31but any of the superstars that you would bring in have had issues
00:36with games played, so I'm a little confused.
00:40Well, Nikola Jokic hasn't had issues.
00:42No, not him.
00:43No, no, no.
00:46Hey, let's dive into that.
00:49What are you doing?
00:52You open the door, Leroy.
00:54As I said yesterday, very strange.
00:58Listen, you're basically Nikola Jokic's therapist, right?
01:01So every single time he's said something, I've just been like, what?
01:06I mean, this guy, where he is mentally this year, is all over the place.
01:10But Pat Riley, when you asked him about Bam, all of a sudden goes on this
01:14Jokic story about in the – I was like – and I just kept – why did he do that?
01:19That's so unlike – I remember the Hassan, Deion Waiters, Goran Dragic,
01:24Dwayne Wade, like years where you don't play and you get paid.
01:29Usually that's not the reaction we get from Pat Riley.
01:32And I was like, what the hell was that?
01:34So what the hell was that?
01:36And also, do you think that's because he's cozy enough to Joker?
01:41I think sometimes – you know this, Tobin.
01:43You've been in enough of these press conferences.
01:46He either tries to build up the player if he's had a bad year,
01:49which he's done that in the past, I think.
01:52Or he is very critical of them and is very brutally honest
01:55and kind of issues a challenge.
01:57For whatever reason, he continued to try to build up Jovic.
02:02While mentioning it was a nightmare season for him.
02:04Like it was an awful – it was a really bad season for Jovic, obviously.
02:09Is that cozying up to Joker?
02:11I don't know.
02:12But, I mean, you – I can't say no.
02:15I mean, could be, right?
02:16I mean, I do know that the Heat are, you know, prioritizing 2027 cap space,
02:22which I think if you take away anything from that press conference,
02:25that was it, right?
02:272027 cap space is important to them unless they're able to get that start
02:31this offseason, right?
02:32Whether that's Giannis or somebody else who becomes available.
02:34They're going to try to preserve that 2027 cap space until they can land that star.
02:40Until then, everything seems to be on hold.
02:43Yeah, so I don't know what the mechanisms are of Joker's contract.
02:48Like, I know that if you stay with a team, you get a gazillion dollars more.
02:52So it's probably – that's why it's become so unlikely, right?
02:54Well, you just get an extra year, right?
02:57It's – or is the money – the money is only that extra year that you would get by staying.
03:02It's not necessarily more each year.
03:06Yeah, I don't know if we – we know the exact numbers, but he's also got every award.
03:09So it's probably – that's why that's the whole mechanism and why we're like cap space.
03:14Like, who – does that work with anybody anymore?
03:16It doesn't feel like it does.
03:18I'll say this about cap space.
03:20It's still very beneficial to have because, yes, while a lot of these guys don't hit free agency outright anymore,
03:29you can still have the threat of that cap space of, like, well, if we don't trade Giannis by this
03:34date
03:35and he's a free agent, the Heat has the cap space to send him out, right?
03:39We could lose him for nothing, right?
03:40So that threat sometimes motivates a team to do a trade because they know.
03:44They know that the Heat – they don't have to go up anything.
03:47They can just wait and send him in 2027.
03:49And same thing with Joker.
03:51Joker can become a free agent in 2027.
03:53He has a player option just like Giannis, just like Donovan Mitchell, right,
03:56who has a player option in 2027 as well to become a free agent.
03:59If the Heat has the cap space ready to go, then if those guys become available,
04:03they could sign them outright.
04:05Maybe that team is willing to make a trade beforehand because just of that threat.
04:11Also, it helps with flexibility to make trades, right?
04:13Where you don't have to take back as much salary.
04:15You're able to make more trades if you have space.
04:18So there are benefits to having space.
04:20It's maybe not the traditional way that most people think about it.
04:23But the Heat are preserving that cap space for a reason.
04:26They want to have the flexibility.
04:28They want to have that threat of, well, if you don't want to trade it, you know,
04:31this guy to us, then we could just sign him outright if he really wants to come here.
04:34So I would say that's really the reason you're seeing the Heat keeping that 2027 flexibility.
04:41One of the other things during the presser that kind of caught me off guard,
04:45and I've never heard Pat kind of criticize Spoh, but I got the feeling that he was criticizing Spoh
04:56by not just riding out these young players and kind of taking the lumps because now you
05:04ended up in the play-in again and you have all this young talent that you've kind of didn't play
05:11and we're going to go through this again next year when we could have maybe been ahead of this.
05:16Yeah, no, I think that was another interesting part of the press conference where he wasn't
05:21overly critical of Spoh, but he did say there needs to be a conversation had of like,
05:26what are we doing here, right?
05:27If we're going to keep these guys and not trade them,
05:30and we want to keep Kalil Ware from a Kevin Durant deal because we believe in him and his potential,
05:35you've got to play him more than 12 minutes a game.
05:37I mean, that just has to happen.
05:39And I know that's tough because you have Bam out of bounds on the roster.
05:42If you don't really trust him and Bam to play together, Bam plays 30, 35 minutes a game,
05:46so that only leaves 13, 14 minutes for Kalil to play.
05:50But I guess the point is, if Kalil's in the roster next year,
05:53there has to be a way to play them together,
05:54which we saw a little bit more of in the final week of the season.
05:57It's unfortunate it took that long, right, for Spoh to kind of say,
06:01well, we need to maximize Kalil's minutes.
06:02Like, this is the way we do it because if not, Kalil doesn't play as much.
06:06I would imagine that if Kalil's back next year and he's not traded,
06:10we'll probably see much more of Bam and Kalil because, you know, like Pat said,
06:14like if you're going to go young and you're going to pick this direction,
06:18we've got to see what we have.
06:19We've got to see.
06:20We've got to develop them.
06:21We've got to let them play through their lumps because they are young.
06:23They're not vets.
06:24That's part of the problem with trading them.
06:26Like, nobody wanted them because nobody was playing.
06:29Right.
06:30Right?
06:30And so they're not assets.
06:32The other thing is, is that I had a hard time during the course of the year
06:36understanding he wouldn't play Bam and Kalil,
06:40but he couldn't wait to play Norm and Tyler.
06:45Right?
06:46Like, and I didn't need to be an expert in basketball to know that that wasn't
06:55going to work on the defensive end at all.
06:59But he kept trying to get that to work.
07:02Yeah.
07:03I think, I think there was hope that, you know, it's two vets, right?
07:07There are two vets.
07:09Tyler's an established starter.
07:10So he's a starter.
07:11He wants to start.
07:12Norman Powell was an all-star this year.
07:14Was a, probably should have been an all-star even last season.
07:17Right.
07:17He wants to start.
07:18So you try to make it work, right?
07:20Yeah.
07:20Were there concerns before the season that that wasn't going to work?
07:22Of course.
07:23Defensively, there were big question marks and that proved to be true.
07:26And then you saw him completely abandon it.
07:29Right?
07:29The final month of the season, they didn't even play much together.
07:32Yeah.
07:33Which they weren't happy about.
07:34So, yeah, I get your point, Leroy, that he was hesitant to play Bam and Kalil together,
07:41but wasn't that hesitant to play Tyler and Norm together.
07:43I think that's more of like, that's the way Spoh kind of handles young players.
07:48Right.
07:49He's going to make them earn their playing time.
07:52And as we know, like Spoh likes Bam playing next to smaller guys.
07:57He just does.
07:58Like you look at their best and to Spoh's credit, like you look at their best years with
08:02Bam, it's playing next to Jay Crowder.
08:04It's playing next to PJ Tucker.
08:06Right.
08:07So, yes, they do need to get bigger, but there is something to be said of like, maybe Bam
08:12is better as a lone big man on the floor.
08:14Right.
08:15This gives him more room to operate.
08:16Defensively, it's better.
08:18But it's about fighting that right power forward, like a PJ Tucker, like a Jay Crowder, who can
08:22space the floor, but also guard up and play bigger than their size at the four spot.
08:27That's the challenge.
08:28What was your sense being around this team every day, Anthony?
08:30Anthony, I felt like it was a, it was a locker room that liked each other personally.
08:35So I don't think that there was a lot of animosity, but I felt listening to everybody in their
08:39exit interviews that basketball wise, role wise, people were pretty miserable.
08:45Like it didn't feel like many people on this team, maybe outside of Pella Larson, were just
08:49thrilled with how the season or Jaime, thrilled with how the season went.
08:55They didn't like the offense.
08:56They didn't like the fit.
08:57Like, do they, did, did you get that sense that this was an unhappy basketball wise team
09:02of just the roles they had to have in this new offense?
09:05I don't know if I'd use the word miserable or unhappy.
09:08I would say there was uncomfort, there was some uncomfortableness, if that's a word, um,
09:13because of this and the new offense, right?
09:14Like this different, it was totally different than what they're used to.
09:17Um, and then what most people are used to, I mean, it was the fastest offense in the
09:20league, right?
09:21Um, they go from playing one of the slowest offenses in the league last year to this with a lot
09:26of these guys returning and it's just new, new, a new way of doing things, a new style.
09:31It affects the defense.
09:33Bam was saying he didn't enjoy having to put up, you know, his first three shots in the
09:37game from three, right?
09:39Which he likes to get into rhythm inside the three point line.
09:41So I think the guys are just uncomfortable because it was so different.
09:45Um, and maybe that led to some like unhappiness, but I thought for the most part, like guys
09:49enjoyed the offense.
09:51They enjoyed the fact they were scoring a lot of points that the offense was better, but it
09:54was still kind of like, not what they're used to and maybe roles.
09:57They weren't necessarily had ever been used in before.
10:00Um, I think it really benefited Jaime, right?
10:02Obviously that really benefited him.
10:04Pella Larson just fits in any offense.
10:06It feels like, like he's just a guy that kind of fits.
10:08Um, so I wouldn't say miserable, but I would say that, you know, guys were a little bit
10:12uncomfortable this year because of the way this kind of non-traditional scheme that they're
10:18running offensively.
10:19Can you win that way?
10:22Because like when you get into the playoffs or you have to play a team like Orlando, who's
10:29going to walk the ball down and, and kind of bang with you, or, you know, we've seen a
10:34couple of these series that have been just like, uh, rock fights.
10:38Can you come into a playoff when the game slows down with that style of offense and have some
10:46success when, for the most part, it, when the game slows down, they, they didn't really,
10:54they kind of struggled.
10:56Yeah.
10:56It's a good question.
10:58We really never saw it because they didn't make the playoffs.
11:00Right.
11:00Right.
11:01But, but I will say like, I think the hope was they had a top five defense for most of
11:06the, of the season, right?
11:07If they have a top five defense, theoretically, you should be able to win those type of games.
11:11Right.
11:11If your defense is really good.
11:13Maybe your offense isn't going to score 130 in those games, but if your defense is good
11:17and you can lean on your defense, you should be able to win those type of games.
11:23Now the defense completely collapsed.
11:25I don't know if this season where it was one of the worst in the NBA.
11:28And when that happened, they weren't winning those type of games, right?
11:31They needed to score 130, 140 to win games at that point.
11:34But when they had the top five defense, I think that's what Spoh was envisioning before
11:37the season of like, if we can get just an average offensive rating, right?
11:42You're playing faster, but we have a top five defense.
11:45Then all of a sudden, maybe we have something, right?
11:47But that top five defense, once you get to nine games over 500, which was their season best
11:52in mid-March, they lost 10 of their final 15 games.
11:55The defense was awful and things just went south from there.
11:58Do you have an answer for that?
11:59Do you have an idea of what happened to go from one extreme to the other?
12:06I can understand if it happens offensively, because you could always say they're just
12:10not making shots or they're not getting good looks or something like that.
12:14But on the other side of the ball, to go from top five to the worst is unheard of.
12:20It's hard to explain.
12:21And even Spoh was like, I've never been a part of something like this.
12:23I don't even know.
12:24We've tried everything and nothing is working.
12:26If I had to try to explain it, I would say, A, they face much better competition on the
12:31final month of the season.
12:33They had a really tough schedule playing some of the best offenses.
12:35So that's going to hurt your defensive metrics.
12:38And two, teams are just making a lot of three-point shots against them.
12:41If you look at the three-point shooting percentage against up until March, they had one of the
12:46lowest in the league.
12:47Teams weren't shooting that good from three against them.
12:49And then that final month of the season, it seemed like the progression to the mean happened
12:53and teams are shooting 40% on threes every game against them.
12:58And that's obviously going to make a huge difference.
12:59So I would say they're playing better teams and teams have started making threes against
13:03them when they really weren't making threes against them for most of the season, which
13:07if you talk to most people around the NBA, three-point defense is kind of luck.
13:10It's kind of fluky where there's only so much you can control with that, right?
13:13You can control how many attempts you give up, but that's usually going to even out throughout
13:17the course of the season.
13:18And it just evened out for the Heat at a really, really bad time for them after mid-March.
13:25So what is your sense with the guys who are up for contracts?
13:29Like Norm, free agent, Tyler Hero, obviously the extension.
13:33I wouldn't think that's very likely based on the year that he just had.
13:37What is your sense on the Heat's appetite to pay either one of those guys long-term?
13:43I don't know if they have any appetite to pay anybody long-term unless it's a star at this
13:47point, right?
13:48I mean, that's the way, that's the impression Pat left.
13:50Maybe if you can sign Jaime to an affordable extension, but even that, like, they might
13:57not, they might just wait on that, right?
13:58Until they could figure out what, who that next star is going to be for this roster.
14:02I don't think they want to tie up any 2027 cap space, you know, for anybody in the roster
14:09right now because they're looking forward to having that flexibility to hopefully make
14:15that big upgrade to the team.
14:17So, yeah, I mean, Pat didn't rule it out, right?
14:20But he definitely made it seem unlikely that they're going to invest any long-term money
14:25in any of these guys.
14:26Now, could Powell be back on a one-year, you know, lucrative contract just to kind of as
14:31a bridge season?
14:32Sure.
14:33I guess, you know, I wouldn't rule that out, but to think that they're going to send
14:36any of these players to a four-year extension, I would be surprised.
14:40There's no shot, though, that they're bringing them both back, him and hero, right?
14:43Like, you would feel like, just because of their comfortability, we're going to do this
14:47again.
14:48Like, there's no shot they could bring them both back.
14:50I wouldn't think so, right?
14:52And, yeah, I don't think so.
14:55I think it's probably one or the other just because you want to maximize this roster,
14:58right?
14:58And it just seemed like, I know Eric Spolscher said during Exit Every Day, like, we didn't
15:04have enough time.
15:05Maybe if we had more time with them playing together, maybe we could have figured it out.
15:08It just seemed like every time they got on the court, like, together, things just weren't
15:13as good, right?
15:14Like, you look at their record when they played together.
15:16You look at the offense when they played together.
15:17You look at their individual stats when they played together.
15:19It just, nothing was as good as when they were just, one of them was on the floor.
15:23One of them was available.
15:24So, I would imagine just to maximize this team, you'd probably only bring one of them
15:29back.
15:30But maybe they think that they can figure it out.
15:32Maybe they think if they're both fully healthy.
15:35I mean, they're two very talented scorers, two very talented players.
15:39Maybe they think they can, you know, figure it out where it could help them offensively.
15:42But based on what we saw this season, it's hard to see.
15:46Anthony, I've always, I've had this conversation with Tobin, and you kind of pointed it out earlier
15:52about feelings.
15:54Right?
15:55And I would always say, why don't they bring Norm or Tyler off the bench?
16:00And he's like, no, Spoh don't want to do that because he don't want to hurt feelings.
16:04But I was always under impression, like, I understand Norm's situation.
16:09Norm's trying to get one more contract.
16:11But in Tyler's situation, we paid you to be a Miami Heat player.
16:17We will determine what that is.
16:22And it seemed like, that always seemed like how the Heat did business.
16:27Right?
16:28They did business according to what the team and the franchise needed to win basketball games.
16:35And they kind of got caught up in feelings in that, oh, we got to do this because this guy's
16:40feelings going to get hurt.
16:40We got to do this.
16:41And it wasn't necessarily for the betterment of the team.
16:45And it showed.
16:46So, and I don't know how you go about that because I understand Norm's situation.
16:50But, Tyler, hey, we gave you the money.
16:53Right.
16:53And you're just coming back.
16:55But I think, and they've always said, it matters with minutes.
17:01It's not whether you start or not.
17:04But how many minutes?
17:04It's been over a hundred times, Leroy.
17:05You know why?
17:06Because he's sensitive about it.
17:07He doesn't like it.
17:08He's told us he doesn't like it.
17:10He's told everybody he doesn't like it.
17:11And Norm doesn't like it either.
17:13They both don't like it.
17:14And they're both fighting for contracts.
17:15I know to your point, they already paid Tyler Hero a pretty good amount with his current contract.
17:20But he's eligible for an extension still.
17:22And he's going to be a free agent next year.
17:26But when Tyler did return, he did play off the bench.
17:28They did bring him back off the bench.
17:30And then Norm got hurt.
17:32Tyler had to start.
17:33Tyler played really well.
17:34Got Eastern Conference Player of the Week.
17:36The team was winning.
17:37So, he's staying in the starting lineup.
17:38Norm played off the bench after that.
17:41So, you could argue, I guess, that they tried to bring Tyler up the bench.
17:44And with Norm's injury, they were forced to change.
17:47It was super weird.
17:48Super weird year.
17:49They were in the Spider-Verse.
17:51They never could be with each other.
17:53And then when they were, they could never be on their terms.
17:55Before we get you out of here, Anthony, I should ask you, Tyler is getting another procedure.
17:59Do we know what this is for?
18:02It's in his other foot?
18:02Is this because he told us he had the bone thing, like an extra bone in his foot?
18:06So, is he having it in the other foot?
18:08Is that what we think this is?
18:09Do we know where this came from?
18:11And, I guess, what the status?
18:13Do we have any details on it?
18:15Yeah, it appears to be like he's having a stress reaction in the foot, which he's having a procedure for
18:21now, early in the offseason.
18:23Pat said he's going to be ready in July.
18:25That's the hope, right?
18:26And I think that's the vision right now, that it's not going to keep him out a significant amount of
18:32time.
18:32Most guys usually pick up their offseason training in July.
18:35Like, summer league guys go out there, they start really kind of picking up their offseason work and getting a
18:40little more serious about things.
18:41So, I think he should be ready by then.
18:44But, from what I've heard, it's a stress reaction in the foot.
18:48And, it's the other foot than the one he had surgery on last offseason, right?
18:52So, we'll see.
18:54But, yeah, it's not something that's going to significantly keep him out, you know, a long period of time.
18:57He should be fine for the second half of the offseason and definitely, you know, for training camp in the
19:03start of the season.
19:03Do you get to go, like, on vacation now, man, or something?
19:05Like, when do you get to take time before the lottery balls?
19:09I have to explain to my wife that I have to cover the lottery on Mother's Day.
19:12That's what I have to do next.
19:15And, it's at 3 o'clock, by the way.
19:17So, it's like, maybe it's like at 8, you know, and it gives me some time to enjoy the day.
19:21No, right smack dab in the middle of the day, 3 o'clock on Mother's Day.
19:24They do it before, like, a playoff game, right?
19:27Yeah, they usually do it before, like, part of the pregame coverage.
19:30They for sure can do it on Monday, though.
19:32What are they thinking?
19:34Do you know?
19:34Mother's Day.
19:35Great timing.
19:36Best of luck.
19:36Well, best of luck.
19:37I hope the lottery balls fall in your favor.
19:40I appreciate that.
19:40I'll let you know.
19:42Anthony Chang, go follow his work.
19:43Look at the Miami Herald.
19:44He's the best.
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