{"id":537420,"date":"2026-01-15T03:04:18","date_gmt":"2026-01-15T03:04:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/537420\/"},"modified":"2026-01-15T03:04:18","modified_gmt":"2026-01-15T03:04:18","slug":"heat-notes-morant-adebayo-mitchell-ware-spoelstra","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/537420\/","title":{"rendered":"Heat Notes: Morant, Adebayo, Mitchell, Ware, Spoelstra"},"content":{"rendered":"

Following up on a report<\/a> stating that Miami appeals to Ja Morant<\/a> and his camp as a potential trade destination, Anthony Chiang of The Miami Herald<\/a> says the Heat reciprocate that interest \u2014 to some extent. According to Chiang, the Heat and Grizzlies have had preliminary conversations about Morant, but those discussions haven\u2019t advanced at all and a source tells the Herald that it\u2019s \u201cpremature\u201d to view Miami as a serious suitor for the point guard.<\/p>\n

As Chiang writes, the Grizzlies are reportedly<\/a> seeking draft assets and young players in a Morant deal, but the Heat would likely resist the idea of offering any draft picks or any of their most promising youngsters for the two-time All-Star, who has battled a series of injuries in recent years.<\/p>\n

Barry Jackson of The Miami Herald agrees with his colleague\u2019s assessment, tweeting<\/a> that any Heat offer for Morant is unlikely to feature real value due to the sense that a trade partner would be doing Memphis a favor by taking the $86MM owed to the 26-year-old over the two seasons after this one.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s more on the Heat:<\/p>\n

After a stretch in which he scored fewer than 20 points in 11 straight games, Bam Adebayo<\/a> had a big night in Tuesday\u2019s win over Phoenix, racking up 29 points on 11-of-15 shooting. Still, pointing to the big man\u2019s underwhelming numbers for the season, one veteran executive tells Barry Jackson of The Miami Herald<\/a> that Adebayo\u2019s maximum-salary contract won\u2019t be considered a positive deal going forward \u201cif he keeps this trend on offense.\u201d Adebayo continues to make a significant impact defensively but has averaged just 16.8 points and 2.7 assists per game on .456\/.333\/.758 shooting. \u201cIt\u2019s amazing what\u2019s happened with him,\u201d an Eastern Conference scout told Jackson. \u201cThe new offensive system hasn\u2019t done him any justice. His offense has regressed. He\u2019s not getting as many assists. He\u2019s better in a pick-and-roll-oriented system than what they\u2019re running now.\u201d
\nHeat guard Davion Mitchell<\/a> has started all 38 games he has played this season for the Heat, but he likely won\u2019t be available on Thursday vs. Boston, having been listed as doubtful due to a left shoulder contusion. Mitchell said on Wednesday that his arm is already feeling better than when he injured it on Tuesday and that an MRI isn\u2019t necessary for now, per Chiang<\/a>. \u201cIf I\u2019m still doing worse or the same tomorrow, then we probably would make that adjustment and get an MRI,\u201d Mitchell said.
\nThe Heat have moved away from two-big lineups as of late, resulting in Kel\u2019el Ware<\/a> playing about 16 or 17 minutes in each of the past three games. However, that usage pattern isn\u2019t necessarily permanent, according to head coach Erik Spoelstra. \u201cThere\u2019ll be some games it\u2019ll make sense to play both of them (together),\u201d Spoelstra said of Adebayo and Ware, according to Ira Winderman of The South Florida Sun Sentinel<\/a> (subscription required). \u201cMany of our rotations are super important and (Tuesday) night it was a speed game, a smaller game. But Kel\u2019el had a big impact on the game in his minutes. That\u2019s what he has to focus on, and that\u2019ll earn him more minutes. That\u2019ll earn trust, not just with the head coach, but with the players.\u201d
\nWhen Mike Tomlin stepped down<\/a> as the coach of the NFL\u2019s Pittsburgh Steelers this week, it made Spoelstra the longest-tenured head coach in any of the major U.S. sports leagues (NBA, NFL, NHL, MLB, and MLS), Winderman writes for the Sun Sentinel<\/a> (subscription required). Spoelstra\u2019s enthusiasm about earning that distinction was muted, to put it mildly. \u201cSome people could look at that as a badge of honor,\u201d he said. \u201cI look at that as really a disappointment to this profession, that there\u2019s not more coaches that are given an opportunity to work through things.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Following up on a report stating that Miami appeals to Ja Morant and his camp as a potential…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":528141,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3724],"tags":[1179,7,491,1200,178,981],"class_list":{"0":"post-537420","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-basketball","8":"tag-bam-adebayo","9":"tag-basketball","10":"tag-davion-mitchell","11":"tag-erik-spoelstra","12":"tag-ja-morant","13":"tag-kelel-ware"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115896900797592360","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/537420","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=537420"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/537420\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/528141"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=537420"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=537420"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=537420"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}