A look at one challenge coaches, players face in Disney bubble. And other Heat updates
As the Miami Heat continued its preparation for the resumption of the season at Walt Disney World with a Monday night practice, coaches and players on the 22 teams participating in the restart continue to live without their families.
Player guests are not allowed inside the NBA bubble until late August following the first round of the playoffs, and there is no built-in window for coaches and staff members to have their families join them at Disney as of now. That means no in-person interaction with wives and girlfriends for at least the next six weeks for players, and even longer than that for coaches and staff.
“It’s a weird feeling,” Heat center Meyers Leonard said during a video conference call with reporters Sunday night. “I’m going to miss my wife and I’s anniversary on Aug. 2. I love my wife dearly. I’m used to spending quite a bit of time with her. It’s the first time that we’ve been apart like this once we get into two, three, four weeks, since our entire relationship. It’s very different for me.
“Admittedly, I talk about ‘Embrace the Suck’ and what it’s going to be like being in this bubble and committing to the team and doing whatever it takes to mentally lock in and be there every day. But I’ve had to wake up a couple mornings and really force myself to focus and understand the task at hand.”
Heat coaches, players and staff are approaching two weeks since they left their families and homes in Miami to enter the NBA campus on July 8.
According to the NBA’s 113-page health and safety manual sent to teams in June, all player guests will need to quarantine upon arrival at the league’s Central Florida campus before they’re allowed to interact with the player they’re visiting. The NBA is allowing teams that advance past the first round of the playoffs — the Heat has already clinched a playoff spot — to reserve up to 17 additional guest rooms (one per player).
“There’s something to be said about being able to deal with ambiguity and the randomness of what’s going on around us, whether that be our testing times getting changed or our wives aren’t here,” Leonard said. “Whatever it may be, I’ve had to really focus and lock in. It has been tough and I don’t know exactly how it has been for other guys. But I know that [Udonis Haslem] and I had a quick conversation, and he’s like: ‘Man, I miss my wife.’ I’m like, ‘You’re telling me.’ It’s like a piece of you is missing. But you just have to do your best to lock in and do your job. That’s what I’m here to do.”
THIS AND THAT
▪ Heat center Bam Adebayo and guard Kendrick Nunn remained in Miami on Monday, but the hope is they will join the team in Central Florida soon. They’re the only two players who did not travel with the Heat to Disney earlier this month.
The NBA on Monday announced each team’s restart rosters. As expected, all 17 of the Heat’s players were listed, including Adebayo and Nunn.
▪ The NBA also announced Monday that 346 players were tested at Disney since test results were last announced on July 13, and zero returned positive for COVID-19. This is confirmation the league’s bubble concept has worked so far.
▪ How does Leonard define the Most Improved Player Award? “There’s one answer,” Leonard said. “It’s Bam. That’s what it is. You talk about a young player who’s developing into a superstar right in front of our eyes.”
Leonard’s praise for Adebayo didn’t stop there.
“Obviously, I was in Portland and I was wondering, ‘OK, well what is he capable of?’” Leonard said. “To be completely truthful and I’ve said this to Bam before, I thought he was an incredibly athletic player, gifted on the defensive end and could finish around the rim. We all now know that that is the truth, but there’s just so much more.”
▪ Heat coach Erik Spoelstra, who normally wears a suit and tie for games, did not pack a tie for the Disney trip. He plans to coach the remainder of the season in casual attire, like others around the league.
“I look at it not like summer league, but more like international basketball, the attire for those tournaments,” he said. “We had already addressed it as a coaches association that we’re not going to wear suits and ties. So I did not bring any of that.”
▪ Heat two-way contract guard Gabe Vincent said Heat coaches have had him watch film edits of elite catch-and-shoot players such as JJ Redick, Kyle Korver and Reggie Miller.
“I think that the intricacies of the way they set their man up, the way they come off the pick-and-roll,” Vincent said Sunday night of what he takes from that film. “JJ Redick being a smaller catch-and-shoot guy, his details. The way he has his feet, the way he sets his man up, the intensity in which he makes his cuts. All those things matter and all those things you can catch on film and try to add to your game. Try to just take bits and pieces from everybody.”
▪ Leonard on claiming the NBA bubble’s beer-chugging title: “When somebody asks you, ‘Oh, what’s your hidden talent?’ I got to say mine might be chugging beer. People just can’t touch me, brother. It’s not close. It just isn’t. Shotguns, chugs, it doesn’t matter. Get them out of here. It’s too easy.”
This story was originally published July 20, 2020 at 2:42 PM.
