How did Heat’s first practice at AA Arena in nine months go? And Spoelstra’s preseason goals
For the first time in nearly nine months, the Miami Heat held a formal team practice at AmericanAirlines Arena.
The Heat held its first group practice in preparation for the 2020-21 season on Sunday, the next phase on the NBA’s preseason schedule outlined in a detailed Health and Safety Protocols document recently distributed to teams amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Teams, including the Heat, had been limited to individual workouts since Tuesday.
Sunday’s session marked the Heat’s first team practice at its AmericanAirlines Arena practice court since March 10, the day before the 2019-20 season was suspended because of the pandemic. That season resumed a little more than four months later on July 30 in a Walt Disney World quarantine bubble, where group practices were allowed to begin again.
“The fact that we were able to bring back so many players, particularly from what we just experienced just several weeks ago, probably allowed us to fast track a little quicker,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said Sunday afternoon, following the first team practice of training camp, as regular PCR testing for the virus continues for players, coaches and staff around the league. “Today was more of a practice and a gauge just to see where everybody was physically.”
All-Star wing Jimmy Butler was one of two Heat players who did not participate in Sunday’s practice because of “excused absences,” according to Spoelstra. Butler’s absence is not related to a COVID-19 diagnosis and he’s expected to begin practicing with the team soon, according to a league source.
The other Heat player who did not practice Sunday is wing BJ Johnson, who just signed an Exhibit 10 deal with the team on Friday and still needs to complete initial testing protocols before he’s cleared to practice.
Despite Butler’s absence, there was a sense of familiarity in Sunday’s practice with 12 of the 15 players from its 2019-20 roster returning for this upcoming season.
“Maybe,” Spoelstra said when asked if the team will be able to pick up where it left off eight weeks ago when its season ended in the NBA Finals. “If today’s practice was an indication, we were able to move rather quickly through things. Literally, I just wanted to use it as a template to really see where guys were, what they were able to retain and how quickly the new players are able to get up to speed with things.”
But Sunday’s Heat practice at its downtown Miami arena looked different than pre-pandemic practices, as only coaches and members of the team’s health and performance staff are allowed to come within six feet of players during team workouts, according to the league’s Health and Safety Protocols manual. And staff working with players are required to wear masks to help mitigate the spread of COVID-19.
“I cannot say enough about [Heat head athletic trainer] Jay Sabol and the time that he’s been putting in,” Spoelstra said. “I think for the foreseeable future, in fact he’s not even going to be our lead trainer. He really is our chief operating officer with COVID protocols. He has been immersed, 12-14 hours a day, just on the league protocols, the memos and then putting together our protocols on top of that.”
The difference between completing last season in a quarantine bubble and now operating in individual team markets? Some players testing positive for COVID-19 is to be expected this season.
“This is different than the bubble in Orlando, where the league drove that, came up with all of that and we just basically were there and followed the steps,” Spoelstra said. “This requires each team to be able to create your own mini bubble. Then when you travel, that bubble is going to travel. That takes a great deal of planning. That’s why I can’t commend Jay enough. I walk into his office at the beginning and the end of every single day, and he just has a mountain of papers and files and memos that he’s translating and boiling it down to the essentials that we all need to know, and then be able to execute.”
The NBA had no players test positive once they entered the bubble at Disney for last season’s restart.
Meanwhile, the league said Wednesday that of the 546 players tested for COVID-19 between Nov. 24-30 in the initial phase of testing after returning to team markets, 48 returned positive tests (8.8 percent). The Trail Blazers closed their facility Sunday after three positive COVID-19 tests within the organization.
“There are pros and cons with how each league is dealing with it,” said Heat veteran forward Andre Iguodala, who serves as National Basketball Players Association first vice president. “... We can be more vulnerable in certain areas in terms of the amount of bodies that we have and we’re so close to each other. Five or six guys out on one team, that can be murky waters. Then we play so many games, where football is just one game a week so you can kind of delay a game a little bit. But with us, you’re looking at four or five games and it’s hard to make those up. So it’s just something that you got to deal with and hope for the best, but prepare for the worst and see what happens from there.”
As part of the Health and Safety Protocols memo, the NBA warned teams that protocol violations that result in COVID-19 spread that causes changes to the game schedule and impacts opposing teams “may subject the violating team to additional penalties, which may include fines, suspensions, adjustment or loss of draft choices, and/or game forfeiture.”
For players who violate health and safety protocols this season, the league warned that in-season quarantine and “proportionate adjustment to pay for any games missed during the period that the player is in quarantine and undergoing testing due to engaging in such activities and/or conduct” are possibilities.
The NBA also detailed how it will handle players who test positive for COVID-19 this season. Players who test positive will have to miss almost two weeks in some circumstances, and also must successfully complete a cardiac exam, before returning to the court.
The Heat is scheduled to open its abbreviated two-game preseason schedule on Dec. 14 against the New Orleans Pelicans at AmericanAirlines Arena before beginning the regular season on Dec. 23 against the Magic in Orlando.
“I really just want to get the guys, get everybody’s conditioning level, basketball conditioning level up to our standards,” Spoelstra said of his preseason goals. “Get our continuity, incorporate the new guys. I’ll continue to evaluate. I don’t feel a panic that we have to have all the answers after the second preseason game. We won’t. We want to be open to possibilities. We have a lot of versatility. We have a lot of different options with our rotation. ... I would imagine we’re going to find new answers and new strengths as the season goes on. I hope so, because we do need to improve. We need to get to another level, and it will take some time to get there.”
▪ Asked about his offseason decision to opt into the final season of his contract — a $12.6 million salary — with the Heat, center Kelly Olynyk said: “The lay of the land right now is a lot of uncertainty in a lot of different areas. It was pretty simple, but you don’t want to be hasty and jump to conclusions. You got to weigh out your options and look at both sides of the spectrum. I think it was the right move and I’m happy to be back.”
This story was originally published December 6, 2020 at 3:30 PM.
