Podcast: Heat announcer Eric Reid talks life without basketball and rewatching old games
Eric Reid finds himself in a strange position this April. For the first time since the Miami Heat’s inaugural season, the Heat’s play-by-play announcer doesn’t have any games to call.
With all this newfound free time, Reid found some time to join David Wilson and Anthony Chiang, the Miami Herald’s Heat beat writer, on the Heat Check podcast this week. Reid, who has been with the organization since 1988, has as much insight to offer on Miami as anyone.
First, we had to start by talking about our new norm. Reid talks about one of the strangest nights of his career — the day the NBA suspended play because of COVID-19 — and how it has him thinking about things other than basketball, plus what he’s doing to pass the time. It involves lots of long walks, helping out in the kitchen and rewatching old Heat games, both from this season and the more distant past. Like a lot of you probably did, Reid made sure to catch the NBATV reruns of the NBA Finals wins from the Big 3 era.
We wrap things up with some rapid fire questions about this Miami team. Remember them? Reid weighs in on rookie standouts Kendrick Nunn and Tyler Herro, and the surprising things he has learned about All-Star wing Jimmy Butler. He also tries to find a historical Heat comparison for All-Star post player Bam Adebayo and gives his answer for where sharpshooting swingman Duncan Robinson stacks up in the history of great Miami three-point shooters.
All in all, it was a welcome diversion from our basketball-less reality and a good reminder of just how much fun this Heat team was prior to the NBA’s ongoing hiatus. It was good to talk some real basketball again while we wait for the season to hopefully restart.
This story was originally published April 3, 2020 at 10:48 AM.
