Miami Heat Coach Erik Spoelstra CALLS OUT Kel’el Ware: Too Harsh or Fair? | Locked On Heat

Miami Heat Coach Erik Spoelstra CALLS OUT Kel’el Ware: Too Harsh or Fair? | Locked On Heat

Eric Spolstra had some comments about Khil Wear, but does he have a point or has he taken it too far? Plus, the latest on Yiannis de Kmpo’s future on today’s episode of Locked on Heat. [Music] You are Locked on Heat, your daily Miami Heat podcast, part of the Locked On podcast network, your team every day. All right, welcome to Locked on Heat, your daily podcast on the Miami Heat. However you’re tuning in on YouTube or on your favorite podcast app. Thanks so much for making Locked on Heat your first listen every day. Today’s episode is brought to you by FanDuel. Right now, new customers can bet just $5. And if your bet wins, you’ll get $300 in bonus bets to use across the app. Head to fanduel.com now to get started. I’m Wes Goldberg, host of Locked on NBA Daily and Real GM Radio. I’m here with David Rmill. Both of us are credentialed Heat Media members who cover this team every day. Okay, we’re going to get to this Giannis report in a second, but we got to start with this Eric Spolster sound from after the Heat’s preseason game against the Bucks. We didn’t talk about this, David, immediately after the preseason game on Monday night cuz we recorded right after the buzzer. Um, Spo talked with reporters afterwards called KL Wear out despite the fact that Weer finished with 18 points and 13 rebounds, most of which happened in the fourth quarter. But as Spo also pointed out, where was a minus 21 in the game? Here is what uh Eric Spolster had to say. Yeah, there was a 3minut segment where it actually impacted the game. The rest of it, it has to impact the game. I’m not looking at the the the statline. I think everybody’s looking at the wrong thing. It’s got to impact the game. I want him the next game to be a plus 20, right? That’s what it’s about. Um and that’s part of the maturation for a young player. he does really good things and then when you uh aren’t able to do it consistently, it doesn’t impact the game. And you don’t want to have deflating plays. You want to have inspiring plays. That that steal he had uh at half court uh was an inspiring play. Uh that impacted the moment and there was probably a a threeminut stretch there. I guess if we I want to take that three minute stretch and see what his his plus minus was on that because it impacted the game. Um and that’s part of him as a young player connecting the dots. That does not matter if you have 18 and 13 if it’s not impacting the game really. David, is he being too hard on Kell? It seems like he’s nitpicking a little bit. I don’t know if too hard is the right way of looking at it. I think he’s doing this deliberately. Um, and I know from the fan perspective, it’s easy to kind of see what Spo is saying and taking it at face value as something that is kind of just I I think being critical, overly critical perhaps of Khal because we’re we’re seeing now the second time in a matter of months of of him actually the third time now that I think about it because he did that earlier this summer as well. Yeah. In Vegas and then again in camp. I think he had some comments and then now as well. So, he’s he’s looking for something. Um, what is it that Spo says? We’re not for everybody. Like, he wants players to be able to respond for all of his warts and everything else. And even the way that he exited this team, Spo Jimmy Butler’s competitive fire and that’s something that is a trademark of players that seem to succeed here in Miami. And I don’t think he finds that or he sees it in Khil Wear at this point. And he’s trying to light that fire as best as possible. And so I’ll be honest with you, I don’t think it’s working though. I don’t think it’s too harsh. Me personally, I think he hasn’t done anything that is overtly critical or to the point where it could eat away at his confidence, but I don’t think Khalil is responding to it. I don’t know what Khil’s buttons are, but I don’t think Spo’s pressing him in the right way as his head coach. And he might have to go in there with a completely different approach. To be honest with you, I don’t even know that where has that level to him, though. I mean, because these are concerns that have been going back for a number of years now, going to his collegiate career, and he just might not have that motivation. I don’t know what it is. Um, we’ve talked about this before and and you brought it up a really good point. Sometimes sevenfooters just don’t love the game. They are taller than everybody else and they don’t really need need to kind of throw us into this life where it’s like, well, hell boy, you’re so tall, you better play basketball. And why the heck not? It’s an easy pathway to perhaps getting in the NBA and getting paid millions of dollars. So, it it makes sense why you would push for that, but it’s not necessarily that somebody who’s a foot shorter who lives and breathes basketball to such a degree that they have to push themselves constantly because that’s the only pathway for them to be able to make it. At 7 feet tall, you’re just so much more talented. You don’t have to drive. You don’t have to push. You’re better than everybody else. and you might just not love the game to that point where you need to feel a way to motivate yourself on a constant basis. And that’s what Spo’s looking for. And that’s why these comments have been as critical and on point as they have. I don’t know that he’s being too hard and I don’t know that it’s not working. I think it might be a little too early to tell whether it’s working or not. Right. But we do know that this is purposeful by Eric Spolstra and that he wouldn’t be doing this if he didn’t exhaust other options cuz this is not what Spo does. And I think that’s what catches Heat fans so offg guard by this is surprising. This is out of character for Eric Spolstra. And I think Heat fans see this and think that he’s being unfairly critical because it’s out of character that he has some sort of vendetta or something against Khal Wear. I don’t believe that to be the case. I believe that Eric Spolstra truly thinks that this is what he has to do to get what he wants to get out of KL Weer. The other thing that Spoke keeps talking about is we’re coaching him hard. And I think this is part of it. I think this is part of him coaching him hard. We’ll see if it works. to your point, maybe he’s not pushing the right buttons here, but I’ll tell you, Bam is trying to get through to him. Yes, Udonis Hasslam is trying to get through him. Get through to him. Malik Allen is trying to get through to him. And I I think if Eric Spolstra thought that they were doing enough behind the scenes, that Bam and Malik and and UD and all this stuff was enough to get through to him, Spo wouldn’t be doing this. But Eric Spolstra has made a point in being in in he’s made a decision back in Las Vegas. He apparently made a decision. I’m going to call this guy out in the media because I believe that that might be something that lights a fire under him and we’ll see if it works. But I I actually understand why Heat fans are so shocked by this and are reacting the way that they are because they don’t have the information that you and I have. They also don’t and you and I don’t even see what’s going on behind the scenes, right? Um and because it’s so out of character for Spo, it almost feels personal where I don’t believe it to be personal. I believe it to be Eric Spolstra just coaching him differently. And by the way, this is a very different team than Eric Spolster has really ever coached a after the first couple of years like since the big three era. And by the way, in first two years of Eric Bolster versus now Eric Spolster, two different head coaches, two different people. Yep. Yep. Since the big three era, he hasn’t had to coach young teams. This is a young team. With the last seven draft picks on the roster, it’s a different kind of job. I’d argue Eric Bolster’s never done this job before in all of his years of coaching. He’s never done this job of developing a young roster. And for him to change the way that he goes about coaching it makes actually more sense than if he were to try to coach it the same way that he tried to coach a team with LeBron or Dwight or Chris Bosch or Jimmy Butler or Kevin Love on it. It’s a different kind of team now and it I think requires a different kind of approach. There’s so much to really It’s such an interesting thing when you look at it that lens of how Spo is handling this coaching challenge that he’s never had to. And even like you look at players on the roster and I know some people uh watching us on YouTube have been critical of Eric Spolstra and like making comparisons to other players on the roster and I’ll say this he’s never questioned Nico to this degree. Uh and I think that speaks that says something like Nico might not be more productive than Khil but he’s giving whatever effort that he can which is why Spo isn’t critical. And can I jump in? Right. I mean, he did say something in the postgame yesterday about Nico’s rebounding and how he just has to rebound better. So, it’s not as if it’s not to the degree that he’s critical of Kell being like, “Right, right. Hey, dude just has to play harder. I don’t care about his points and his rebounds.” Like, he’s not going so he’s not going that far with Nico, but he is saying like, “Hey, he’s doing all these other things that we really appreciate.” And he’s being very complimentary of Nico, but then also adding we need to see more of him as a rebounder. But even that by itself, like compared to the wear comments is like nothing. But if you remove the wear comments from the ether and just take the Nico stuff compared to what he how Spo used to talk about his players, even that is kind of jarringly different. Maybe I’m trying to think like the the the the stands out to me the most about the wear comments is like he played 23 minutes. He said basically you were good for three of them and you sucked for 20 of them. That that’s kind of harsh. That’s really harsh for Spo to say. Uh, but I’m trying to think like in the what is it 17 years now since Spo has been a head coach like Michael Beasley and Hassan Whiteside and that’s it. Who else has made the doghouse to this degree as far as being attacked via the media? I didn’t think of anybody else. Kyle Lowry was in the doghouse, but he didn’t attack him in the media. No, he earned too much respect at that point. Like maybe he stunk out on the floor, but you’re not going to say anything to 35year-old. He know that there were parts of Tyler Herro’s game that frustrated him. Sure. But never called him out in the media. Nope. Never had to. But the other thing that he respected about Tyler Hero was that he was putting in the work behind the scenes. So maybe he didn’t feel he he never felt like he needed to go to that. There are coaches first resort, call them out in the media. You know who they are. We don’t have to name them. There are other coaches last resort. Never do it. Spo is in that latter camp, but it is on the it is an option that if if he feels like could bring the most out of a player, he’s going to do it. Was Eric Spolstra too hard on KL Wear? Was he too critical? Were there really only three good minutes out of the 23? We’ll tell you what we found on the tape after this. Today’s episode is brought to you by Monarch Money. Most people can’t name all their financial accounts or even what they’re worth, whether it’s 401ks or properties or investments. And when you don’t have the full picture, well, you can end up leaving money on the table. And that’s why there’s Monarch Money. It’s an all-in-one personal finance tool that brings your entire financial life together in one clean, easy to use interface on your laptop or on your phone. Monarch is built for people with busy lives. 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Thanks for making us your first listen every day. So, David, I went back to the tape. Go ahead. Yeah. No, no. I was just thinking, you know, that comment. It feels like you were trying to keep me from doing my Doc Rivers impersonation. We were talking about coaches who might throw players under the bus. But that’s right. It was literally the name that came to mind. Yeah, you don’t have to do it, but you can if you want. That’s right. Um, no. So, I I went back and watched the film after listening to Eric Spolster’s comments last night because it did sounded harsh. Um, I’ll tell you what I found that was surprising. So, he finishes as 18 and 13. We talked about on the recap how he did most of his work in the fourth quarter. 14 of his 18th points in the fourth quarter. So I thought going into it, all right, I’m going to watch the first half and I’m probably going to just see a bunch of blunders and I’ll probably get what Eric Spolster was saying before Khalware kind of found his footing in that game. Not the case. Not the case. I thought Wear was better in the first half than he was in the second half. Might sound surprising. Wes, you’re crazy. He had 14 points in the fourth. He was the only guy who showed up in the fourth quarter. All these Okay. Okay, I hear it. I hear it. But when Eric Spolstra says, “I don’t care about the points and the rebounds if you’re not impacting winning,” I think I see what at least irked Eric Spolstra before he he before he had a chance to watch the film, right? This is immediately after the game. What is the thing that bothered him that made him say what he said after the game? So, let me start with the first half. I thought his rebounding was really good. Even if he wasn’t grabbing the rebound, I thought he was establishing position. I thought he was boxing out well. If he didn’t grab the rebound, he didn’t hang his head. He didn’t get disheartened. He went right back at it the next time. Boxed out, established position, etc. I thought his rebounding was really good in the first half. Could have set some better screens, but that’s always the case with KL Wear and Young Bigs in general. I think he could be a better screen setter, but nothing jumped out to the point where he was just, I don’t know, not doing his job, right? I think he’s just working on setting better screens. Um, there was a series in the first half where he settled for a mid-range jumper and then let Miles Turner get back to the basket on the other end. And I would imagine that jumps out in film right away. That’s going to be pointed out to him. Hey, if you’re taking that mid-range jumper, get back. You can’t let your guy then beat you down to the other end and score at the basket, which is, by the way, where we want you scoring. We don’t want you settling for fall away jumpers anymore. Um, so, uh, but out of the first half, that one mid-range jumper to the Miles Turner score was the one glaring thing where I was like, “That’s a problem. They’re going to call that one out on film.” That’s Yeah, that’s in the 20 minutes, not in the 3 minutes. That didn’t fall in the 3 minutes. The second half was worse. So, Precious Aua starts the second half. I do wonder if that was the plan or maybe that was maybe another way for Spo to try to send a message. But Precious Sichua starts the second half. They go about 8 minutes. Kalawware comes back in. Uh he settles for a pullup three-pointer on a series where there was a he doesn’t have the ball. He could have set a screen for a teammate. Instead of doing that, he just kind of floats over here at the top of the arc, gets the ball pass to him, and instead of doing anything with it, just sort of settles for this pull-up three. I that that is not the shot that they want him to. You could shoot threes, but it has to be trailing threes in transition, spacing to the corner, pick and pop. Not here’s the ball, don’t do anything with it for a couple of beats, and then just settle for a a pull-up three-pointer. That’s not the shot that they want him taking. Uh he got pushed out of the way for an offensive rebound by a smaller player on Milwaukee. Um he chased a guard for a block. He was chasing a block, ended up way out of position and then let Milwaukee score on a dunk. That was on him. Uh he got on one series in the fourth quarter the ball just stolen away from him. He got the ball at the top of the key. Didn’t know what to do with it. Acted like he’d never seen a basketball before and the uh just got the ball stolen from him and then Milwaukee scored in transition. and then more generally just spent a lot of time floating on the perimeter, not making an impact against I think a at that point a smaller Milwaukee lineup. If I’m if I’m the Heat coaches, I’m saying, “Hey, you’re the biggest guy on the court. It’s a little bit summer league-ish where it’s just like, “Hey, dude, I know you think it’s fourth quarter of a pre a meaningless preseason game, but here’s your opportunity to establish dominance and we want you to we want to see you do it. Preseason, regular season playoffs, we want to see you do it.” and he just really wasn’t doing that in the fourth quarter. And I kind of have to agree with Spo kind of like and I kind of said it yesterday on the recap. This is a guy who can just sort of roll out of bed with a double double and it kind of felt like that’s what happened. He kind of felt like he sleepwalked his way into a double double. 14 points in the fourth quarter. They lost that game. They were a m and and by the way that minus 21, he was only a minus 6 in the first half. The rest of it came in the second half when he was doing all the scoring and all those points. It didn’t matter. It was empty. It was empty stats. So, I do I I kind of agree with Spo after watching it again. No, it makes sense. Um, and for those I can almost hear them already sharpening their knives to try to defend him for some reason. This is a preseason game, so maybe this isn’t game seven of the playoff series, but so what? This is a secondyear player who hasn’t done anything. He needs to be out there giving maximum effort. He needs to. This isn’t about risking injury. No, no. You take plays off some other place, some other career. Not at the NBA level. There are guys here fighting for their NBA careers during the preseason. They can’t afford to take a minute off. And a guy like Kh is simply too talented. So, yeah, maybe it’s not the most critical juncture of a critical game, but that doesn’t mean that he can afford to take plays off. take whole series off, take whole minutes and quarters off. Like that’s not going to cut it. He needs to be out here doing the maximum possible. And and I think that’s what Spo wants. He’s trying to light that fire. And for him to just be out there as talented as he is, as big as he is, and as capable of reaching his potential, he’s just not living up to it. And I think there’s definitely an emotional, psychological, whatever you want to call it, factor between the years where he just needs to be able to find that way of taking it to the next level because he’s not going to get more playing time. And I’ll add this, if he’s not doing it in games, he’s probably not doing it in practices either, or else he’d be starting. He just He’s not doing it in practices. We already heard that from Spo. He needs to see it more in training camp. He wasn’t doing it, right? So he’s not doing it in practices. He’s not doing in games. He’s not he’s not Jimmy Butler in his 12th 13th season who could say, “Yeah, I’m not going to play in the preseason cuz I don’t want to.” Look, the Heat staff didn’t like that either, but they they certainly knew what he was capable of. This is a completely different situation. If Khil wants to do it and take the whole preseason off and all of a sudden just say, “You know what? I’m going to come out looking like a Hall of Famer in the regular season,” fine. But he’s not. He just hasn’t done it. He hasn’t done it. And our last memories of him in a game that actually matters is Jared Allen mopping the floor with Khil Wear despite the fact that they’re similarly sized, right? That’s not a good look. No, that is not a good look. From there, then you go to like a on andoff summer league and then an on andoff preeason. At some point he needs to figure it out and do a little bit more. I don’t think that this is a case of Eric Sper and the Heat giving up on Kell Wear. As we know, they kept him out of Kevin Durant trade talks. They drew the line there, right? They do believe in his ceiling. I actually think this is the opposite. Like benching Khal Wear is not giving up on KL Wear. This is them trying to maximize K Wear and trying whatever it takes to try to get him to reach a ceiling. We’ll see if it works. The Heat don’t know if it’s going to work. Obviously, this is what they feel is their best route. Like this is they’ve determined that this is the path they’re going to take with this guy in terms of how they want to coach him. But everybody understands what the talent is. Nobody’s giving up on him. I actually think this is an argument to say that they haven’t given up on him. If you just gifted him the starting job just because he’s seven foot one and maybe because Bam likes it, you learn anything that way. You don’t learn anything that way. That’s actually kind of more given up on the guy if you just sort of hand him the starting job. This is I think this is what coaching is going to look like. And it’s the point I made before. This is a different kind of job for Eric Spolster and this coaching staff. This is player development, not with two-way guys who are on the fringe of the league where if it doesn’t work out, cut them on the two-way. It doesn’t even pack the cap. Talking about no risks, right? There’s a lot writing on Khlo Wear. There’s a lot writing on getting this one right. You you didn’t trade him for Kevin Durant. He’s the guy who you picked to be the front court partner for the future with Bam Adabio and and Nikolovic. Now that’s sort of your three-way your threeheaded monster in the front court. Now, Koware makes all of that work, right? You need it to work, and this is how they want to make it work. It’s not to say that he’s not going to start even opening night if he changes dramatically over this this next week. He’ll probably start at some point this season. I wouldn’t I wouldn’t say that there’s not there’s there’s a non-zero chance that he emerges as a starter by the end of the regular season, but you got to put him on that path to earn it. You can’t just give it to him the way that they didn’t give it to him uh when he was a rookie. And Eric Spolster was criticized for that. I mean, but that’s it’s like you can’t give him the carrot right away. Like he has to be able to earn it and it’s just he hasn’t done enough and uh it’s I think it’s a really good point uh that that Bose is trying to find a way to push it because at this point he just doesn’t see any other alternative. Uh but you only fight if in something that you care about. If it’s just something that doesn’t really matter, you wouldn’t say anything. It wouldn’t be a big deal. But the fact that he’s trying this hard and going this route that we’ve seen so infrequently from Eric Spolzer over 17 seasons of being a head coach, I think it just speaks to the kind of potential he has. Again, we we the two examples I point out, Michael Beasley, a number two pick who had all the talent in the world and what was it what kept him and just recently over the course of the summer said, “I wish I’d listened to Pat and the Heat coaches because I my career would have been different.” He recognizes this now when he’s out of the league and there’s no chance for him to make it. He recognizes that he could have done things differently that he was in his own words a knucklehead. Yeah. Hassan Whiteside. I mean the guy had all the talent in the world and he was playing in uh what is it? Tel Aviv Makabe because he just he couldn’t make it in the NBA despite being a draft pick with Sacramento. At some point it’s it’s incumbent on the person, not the player, but the person to say, “This is my life that I’m fighting for, and I’ve got to be able to make it work.” And when you put in that effort, the coaches will recognize it and give you your just rewards. We’re going to move on. Shams has more reporting on the Giannis situation in Milwaukee. We also have more details on what the Heat might be willing to offer if Giannis were available in a trade. We’ll talk about that next here on Knocked on Heat. Today’s episode is brought to you by FanDuel. The NFL season’s here. Well, maybe outside of South Florida, but other worlds. Yeah, it is. The FanDuel has an offer you don’t want to miss because right now, new customers can bet just $5 and get $300 and dollars in bonus bets if you win. That’s right. You pick a bet, you put down five bucks, and if it hits, you’ll unlock $300 in bonus bets to use across the app. And believe me, you’re going to love using FanDuel. It gives you so many different ways to play. You can build parlays. You can try player props. You can even follow the live lines during games. And it makes watching football even more exciting when you’ve got a little something writing on the action. You see it all the time. Guys are checking in on every game because they want to see whether or not their game hits or whatever player they might have a prop on. There’s so many different ways to juice up the action and FanDuel makes it happen. If you’re a casual fan or you love diving diving into the stats, FanDuel makes the game day experience so much better. So, what are you waiting for? Go visit fanuel.com to download the FanDuel app today and get started. That’s over at fanuel.com. We’ll be right back. [Music] So, let’s get to this Giannis report. It’s pretty crazy. Um, according to Shams, the Bucks and the Knicks held trade talks about potentially sending Giannis to New York this summer. Those talks were brief, did not lead to anything obviously, but Shams also reported that Giannis will keep his options open depending on how the Bucks start the season. There’s a ton of other interesting little nuggets in this piece. Um, it’s worth reading over at ESPN.com, but for our purposes, the idea that Giannis is going to keep his options open depending on how the Bucks start the season, that’s sort of the takeaway here. If you’re a fan, Heat fan or otherwise, hoping to get your hands on Giannis here. Then you’ve got Barry Jackson following up saying that the Heat were prepared to offer a package to Milwaukee this off season if Giannis were to ask for a trade that did not include Bamabio. The subtext being there probably included everything else. Right. So um something worth monitoring here now in Milwaukee. What do you make of the story? It’s it’s hard to I don’t know. I don’t feel I feel like and we were talking about this before we started recording like part of me wants to build this up and say this is something but to you know echo a game that we’ve played over the show the the show for many many years it doesn’t feel like something to me right now. It’s just I don’t know what to it feels like Sham’s kind of trying to come up with a story or a way to make this more interesting. Ultimately if Giannis wants out of Milwaukee I think we’ll hear about it very publicly because he’s going to try to find a place that makes him and his family very comfortable. Um, I don’t know. Uh, you know, you mentioned that, uh, Giannis, his family’s living in Athens almost exclusively now. They, so they’ve moved out of the United States. I don’t know if that’s verified or not, or I saw that report somewhere. It kind of feels like maybe there’s a lot of different pieces that have to connect together in order to kind of make something out of this. And yet, I don’t I don’t see it. I don’t know. I I I think he’s not happy with just one championship in Milwaukee. I think that team’s not particularly great, perhaps, but is a trade some where is the right trade for him in order to be within that championship window that he’s looking for because I don’t know that exists. I don’t know if Miami is that place but I don’t know if it exists elsewhere as well. So I don’t know that he’s actually angling for a trade at this point in time. I think Giannis and I’ve given him credit for this before. He’s a lot more ruthless on the business side. Everybody loves the kind of shucks oh golly G sort of attitude he brings. Oh boy I love smoothies etc. Like that’s all great. all fine, but he’s actually much more cutthroat than he lets on. And that being the case, I think he’s trying to hold Milwaukee’s feet to the fire. But I don’t know that he’s actually angling for something or pushing his way out of the Bucks just yet. I would agree. I I think we’re far from Giannis asking for the trade and starting to push his way out. Now, that said, there’s pieces of this story that start to lay the groundwork a little bit for that, right? where there there’s there’s some details here in Shams’s reporting which I I don’t doubt anything that Shams wrote here as it I don’t think he wrote anything false, right? I don’t think he wrote anything purposely false here. Maybe it’s being packaged in a way that makes it sound like it’s a bigger deal than it is, but there’s already some stuff coming in from Giannis’s side about, hey, like waving Damen Lillard and signing Miles Turner, doing the Damen Lillard trade initially, like that was all done by John Horse, the Bucks GM. Like, we had no we had no input on that. I don’t know how much I believe that. I don’t know how much I don’t believe it. Right. I’m just saying like there’s a lot of hey, if it goes wrong in Milwaukee, it’s not my fault. I had nothing to do with these moves, right? So, cuz the one thing that I don’t think Giannis want I think I think you’re right. When you say Giannis wants to desperately win another championship, he’s come out and said that multiple occasions. Right. Right. Um that is important and we know that if he once he feels for sure that he can’t do it in Milwaukee, he’s at he’s gone. And for whatever reason, he’s holding on. He’s holding on to hope. And that’s why I think you have this report saying something like, “Hey, we’ll kind of see how this first quarter of the season goes and after maybe 20 or so games, he’ll start to re he’ll look around and be like, “Okay, is this roster good enough? Is Miles Turner, Kevin Porter Jr., and Kyle Kosma good enough?” And then he’ll make that decision, right? Based on wherever the Bucks are at and how he’s feeling. So, um, we’ll get there. But yeah, he’s until we get to that point. Go ahead. Who benefits from this? No, you you’ve always pointed out like who benefits from these stories coming out. Is this uh a Shams German Zimmerman piece or is it Bucks management or is this somebody on Yiannis? I think this is I think Giannis is the one who benefits because he’s the one who like I that was the other part I was going to get to. He obviously wants to win a championship. He also does not want to look like the bad guy to your point. He’s kind of got this personality, this brand. He doesn’t want to look like the bad guy who forced his way out. Uh, but if you can paint it in a way where it’s, hey man, look, we’re eight games under 500. None of the guys from the championship team are there. We’re obviously going nowhere fast. Could you blame me for wanting to leave? That might be the that to me is the point that Giannis and the Bucks need to get to for Giannis to ultimately ask for a trade. And you could look at this roster right now and argue you’re probably already there. But Giannis deserves some credit. He’s going to give it a whirl. He’s gonna give it a try and we’ll see what happens. No, but you’re I mean this is you’re connecting the dots ahead of schedule here because I think this is like you’re seeing the dominoes in effect even before the first one has fallen and this piece is it. It’s kind of setting it up for like look there’s interest you know but uh and and again everything that he said in the past I just want to win a title. This is important to me. This is what I want etc. But it all sets up so perfectly for you be for him to be coming out like roses out of this whole process. Like I gave it my all everybody. I tried my best but here I am. I couldn’t make it work. I really wanted to do this. And then next thing you know he’s on a jet somewhere to New York living it up. And you can buy whatever $20 smoothie you can get there in Times Square. But uh it’s just I mean I paid for an $8 kish here. in Time Square. One Kesh. One Ganesh. And I’ll tell you what, I threw it out. It was horrible. I don’t know what happened to Times Square. I think it’s always been this way. It’s been this way for a while. Why Why pay reasonable prices when you can get it three times as expensive and half as good over in Time Square? It’s $8 for a a potato. I can only imagine what they’re paying for blended up fruit. Yeah. Um, so is it is there you want to talk about the Heat aspect of this? The the Kesh conversation we could have at a different time. I guess we could we could put a pin in the Kesh. What’s what’s do the Heat are the Heat interested in making an offer? I think Barry Jackson had some reporting about that. And and is it an offer that’s viable? Because I know the way Barry made it sound it was like, okay, that’s not going to get it done. No, I mean the best you could do if Bam is off the table, which was Barry’s reporting and that’s how I understand it as well because the idea would be let’s put Giannis with Bam and let’s figure that part of it out. Um, Tyler Herro, Milwaukee guy, you could try to sell John Hor and Bucks ownership on uh Prodigal son returning, I suppose, something like that. Um, Terra Rosir’s expiring and here’s our first here’s our two or three first round picks that we could swing. Um and then yeah, I guess it’s like take your pick. Do you want Kell? Do you want Nico? Do you want Haime? Like what do you what do you you can’t if it if it were to happen this season before the trade deadline, you couldn’t trade Nico because he just signed that extension then he gets poison pill and then there’s a million things that would be complicated. But then yeah, I guess it’s just your pick of the young guys plus Tyler Herro as sort of the blue chipper and whatever else. You you could put Wiggins in the trade. He makes some sense uh on any kind of team. I mean, the Heat have options, but if they wanted to try to match what the the Knicks could do and potentially offering Carl Anthony Towns as sort of the the anchor of a reset in Milwaukee, I don’t think that they can compete with that. They more pick. New York only has the one first round pick, so maybe if Milwaukee is interested in more picks. I don’t know. I think it should include B. I know there’s a lot of Heat fans that would agree with you. I mean, what are you doing? like if if if you’re really committed to building a team that you think is gonna compete for a title uh and you have a chance to get Giannis if you can include Bam in a deal and probably not much else, right? It would be Bam and I don’t even know what it would take. Maybe one young player, maybe a combination of some picks. Bam in a first, right? I mean, if you’re looking at what the Knicks offer would be, Cat in a first, Bam and a first is a better deal. Yeah. And I think you’re you’re you do get better as a team. like I I don’t I wouldn’t want to make that trade. I wouldn’t want to make that trade. But yeah, I think Giannis is uh your focal point right away. He’s the guy who can get to you, you know, get you what you need in crunch time. He’s your go-to player. He’s been that. And I would say the supporting cast in Miami with Powell, with Hero, with Wear, with Nico, and everybody else that’s on the roster, that’s a title contender. It’s Anthony Davis for Luca. That’s what that trade is. It’s a core piece. Hard to give up. But you’re getting one of the top three players in the NBA. So, you kind of have to do it, don’t you? So, look, Barry’s reporting was Miami was willing to offer a package of that did not include Bam. That there were no negotiations took place that you you end up offering BAM after negotiating. You don’t come out right away with Bam in your offer. So, I not not to say that he would offer BAM or anything like that, but you know, that’s that’s how things work, right? It doesn’t mean that I look, Giannis is on the table. I don’t think it’s uh uh a hot take to say if you could trade for Giannis, everything’s on the table, right? Like nothing is nailed down in the house. Like all of it can go if you can get Giannis. That’s the kind of player that we’re talking about here, even at this stage of his career. Um that’ll do it for us today. Thanks for making Locked On your first listen every day. If you’re a second listen, go find Locked On Fantasy Basketball. Josh Lloyd hosts the number one fantasy basketball podcast, giving you daily tips and helping you win your league, all while making you a smarter NBA fan. Find Locked On Fantasy Basketball on YouTube or wherever you listen to podcast. Part of the Locked On podcast network, your team every day.

Erik Spoelstra’s comments about Kel’el Ware are shaking up Miami Heat fans, sparking debate about his coaching style and Ware’s development. Plus, fresh Giannis Antetokounmpo trade rumors are making headlines as the Heat’s potential offer surfaces.

In this episode of Locked On Heat, hosts Wes Goldberg and David Ramil break down Spoelstra’s tough-love approach, why the Heat are doubling down on player development, and what the latest Giannis to Miami buzz could mean for the team’s future.

0:00 Intro
1:30 Is Spo being too harsh on Kel’el Ware?
12:15 Film breakdown: Ware’s performance vs. Bucks
24:38 Details on Giannis’ reported trade talks

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