Q: Ira, I read that the Heat can add two players by Thursday. We\u2019re starting Myron Gardner for goodness sake. Why not move now? \u2013 Elliot.<\/p>\n
A: Um, you mean the Myron Gardner who closed with eight points and 10 rebounds in Wednesday night\u2019s victory in New Orleans<\/a>, the player who energized when energy was needed?\u00a0 But, yes, the Heat would have the space below the highly punitive luxury tax to add two players (provided Terry Rozier is waived) on NBA-minimum contracts for the balance of the season as of Thursday. And, yes, it is hard to make any argument against such moves when you are going into a game such as Wednesday night without Tyler Herro, Norman Powell, Pelle Larsson and Andrew Wiggins. For a team teetering in play-in range, it\u2019s not as if every game doesn\u2019t matter. Granted, when healthy, even some rotation types aren\u2019t seeing action. But teams since last month have been allowed to sign players to 10-day contracts, so the means have been there for a while. That\u2019s not to take anything away from Myron Gardner, with plenty of two-way players contributing this season across the NBA. But, I agree, why not position your team as best as possible? Or, then again, use some of that roster space to convert Myron to a standard deal and add another two-way player before that March 4 deadline.<\/p>\n Q: Ira, I understand that Bam Adebayo has been a talking point in this space because of his contract and offense, but let\u2019s also give him credit for showing up. I know that sounds small, but Tyler Herro has missed almost the entire season, Norman Powell has missed so many games that something would be said if not Tyler missing more. And then no Andrew Wiggins or Pelle Larsson on Wednesday night. \u2013 Lance.<\/p>\n A: It is something, isn\u2019t it, that mere attendance has become a source of praise in today\u2019s NBA? But you are correct that Bam has pushed through as much as anyone to get to the court this season, once he got past his toe sprain earlier this season. Still, the reality is that here we sit at the All-Star break, still with no idea of what this team looks like, certainly with just a scant read on the Tyler Herro-Norman Powell pairing. Does it work? Who knows? As for Bam Adebayo, Wednesday said all that needed to be said<\/a>, with his 27 points and 13 of 17 from the line. He was relentless when the Heat needed relentless.<\/p>\n Q: Simone Fontecchio has become Erik Spoelstra\u2019s latest teacher\u2019s pet. \u2013 Sanderson.<\/p>\n A: Wouldn\u2019t go that far. with Simone Fontecchio tending to get the call when there aren\u2019t many others to get the call, such as with Wednesday night\u2019s starting lineup. As for Simone closing on Wednesday night, that likely was more of a case of knowing the Pelicans were going to shoot threes and needing someone to defend on the wing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Q: Ira, I read that the Heat can add two players by Thursday. We\u2019re starting Myron Gardner for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":598789,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3778],"tags":[3879,7,144,165,295,189,3880,3881,6,66],"class_list":{"0":"post-598788","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-miami-heat","8":"tag-ask-ira","9":"tag-basketball","10":"tag-heat","11":"tag-latest-headlines","12":"tag-miami","13":"tag-miami-heat","14":"tag-miami-heat-blog","15":"tag-miamiheat","16":"tag-nba","17":"tag-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116057628885431736","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/598788","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=598788"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/598788\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/598789"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=598788"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=598788"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=598788"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}