Heat’s Bam Adebayo, Kendrick Nunn out of quarantine at Disney. What’s next?
When the Miami Heat gathered for a team dinner Tuesday night, it was their first meeting with all 17 players on the NBA’s Disney campus.
But not all 17 players could attend the meal, with center Bam Adebayo and guard Kendrick Nunn required to remain inside their hotel rooms as part of a required 36- to 48-hour quarantine upon entering the league’s bubble on Tuesday evening. So, the Heat improvised.
“We were on the other side of the lake, socially distanced outside, and we had them come out to their windows,” coach Erik Spoelstra said, as the Heat opened its three-game scrimmage schedule at Disney with a win over the Sacramento Kings on Wednesday night. “We all waved to them, which was pretty funny.”
Communication just got a lot easier, though, as Adebayo and Nunn were cleared Thursday afternoon to exit their hotel rooms and begin life on the NBA campus after returning two negative COVID-19 tests at least 24 hours apart to fulfill the required in-room quarantine period.
With the Heat off on Thursday, Adebayo and Nunn went through an on-court workout with a few coaches and teammates Thursday afternoon. Their first formal team practice since March will come Friday.
Adebayo, who turned 23 on Saturday, and Nunn, 24, arrived at Disney two weeks later than the rest of their teammates for reasons that the team and players declined to disclose, citing privacy reasons. The two Heat starters were not available to play in Wednesday’s scrimmage opener because they were still in the middle of their required quarantine period.
With Adebayo and Nunn now out of quarantine, will they be available to play in the Heat’s final two scrimmages (Saturday vs. Utah Jazz and Tuesday vs. Memphis Grizzlies) before Miami begins seeding games on Aug. 1 against the Denver Nuggets? Spoelstra was noncommittal Wednesday.
“We’ll just have to see what they look like when we get them on the court,” Spoelstra said. “But I know that during the months of May and June, they had the most workouts. And they’re young. So, it won’t take them too long to get back. That does mean something. And the last 10 days or so, they were able to do bike workouts and stay fit, like everybody else did coming into this.
“Then we’ll just adjust on the fly. I’ll figure it out. It’s not like we’re going to put them in five-on-five, hunger-games scrimmage the first time out on the court. But it’s just good to have them back. And I know that everybody is excited to have them join us in a real way, instead of just virtually every day.”
Adebayo and Nunn need to make up for lost time, though, as they will have just one week of practice to prepare for the start of seeding games. The other 15 players on the Heat’s roster are entering their third week of team practices at Disney.
“I think they’ll be all right,” Heat All-Star Jimmy Butler said of Adebayo and Nunn. “You get in there and you just hoop for a little bit, get a rhythm, play in a couple of scrimmages and then be ready to go. I know that they’re going to be in shape, because they’ve been doing what they’re supposed to be doing. But we really do need these guys, want these guys back ASAP.”
Without Adebayo and Nunn, the Heat used a starting lineup of Goran Dragic, Duncan Robinson, Butler, Derrick Jones Jr. and Meyers Leonard in Wednesday’s scrimmage opener against the Kings. But this lineup is temporary, with Adebayo and Nunn expected to slide back into the Heat’s starting five when they return.
Based on the numbers, the expectation is that Spoelstra will use a starting lineup of Nunn, Butler, Robinson, Adebayo and Leonard when those five players are healthy and available. This group has started 38 games this season and has posted the best plus/minus of any five-man Heat lineup this season at plus-121.
Before the NBA suspended play on March 11 amid the COVID-19 pandemic, Adebayo was in the middle of a breakout season. In his third NBA season and his first as a full-time starter, Adebayo is averaging career highs in points (16.2), rebounds (10.5), assists (5.1), steals (1.2), blocks (1.3) and minutes (34.4) on his way to earning his first All-Star Game appearance.
Nunn has had a standout rookie season, averaging 15.6 points on 44.8 percent shooting, 2.7 rebounds and 3.4 assists in 62 games (all starts). Nunn, who went undrafted in 2018, has been named the Eastern Conference Rookie of the Month three times this season.
“We really want those guys back, obviously,” Butler said. “We know that they will be in shape. It’s the Miami Heat way. It’s the culture here. They’ve been doing everything that they can to make sure when they do get back, when they are both back with the team, that they’ll hit the ground running. They are our key pieces. They’re very, very important to what we want to try to accomplish this year, and probably for many more years moving forward. More than basketball, we just want our brothers back.”
This story was originally published July 23, 2020 at 3:35 PM.
