Heat’s COVID-19 outbreak grows. Will there be enough available players Friday vs. Rockets?
The Miami Heat flew to Houston on Wednesday night with hopes of having enough available players to move forward with Friday’s game against the Rockets.
But the Heat’s COVID-19 outbreak worsened on Thursday, as Duncan Robinson and Marcus Garrett joined six teammates in the NBA’s health and safety protocols. With more positive tests on the roster and among staff in the traveling party, the Heat canceled its Thursday evening practice in Houston and is even bringing back two-time NBA champion point guard Mario Chalmers, who hasn’t played in the NBA since 2018, for added depth.
Whether the Heat will have the minimum of eight available players required by the NBA to play against the Rockets on Friday (7 p.m., Bally Sports Sun) likely won’t be determined until a few hours before tipoff after Wednesday’s matchup against the Spurs in San Antonio was postponed because Miami did not have enough players to proceed with the game. Further COVID-19 testing and whether Jimmy Butler can return from injury will dictate how many players the Heat is left with.
Friday’s New Year’s Eve game in Houston would mark the first of six straight road games for Miami — a trip that was originally scheduled to include seven games before its matchup against the Spurs called off.
“I think this job of leadership is going to have a lot of things on your desk. The overwhelming majority of them are things that you did not anticipate,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said earlier this month. “That’s part of the gig. A global pandemic is not something that you thought would be a part of the gig, but it is. I think obviously you can’t come in in an absolute panic every day. I think it’s part of our jobs as leaders to overcommunicate, allow everybody and anybody to feel what you feel. That’s part of being human. But then also to try to find some solutions, compartmentalize and still find a way to get everybody on the same sheet of music to focus on the task at hand.”
The Heat currently has eight players in the NBA’s health and safety protocols: Zylan Cheatham, Garrett, Udonis Haslem, Kyle Lowry, Robinson, Max Strus, P.J. Tucker and Gabe Vincent. Robinson’s absence will snap his franchise-record streak of 182 consecutive appearances dating back to April 2019.
But Lowry and Garrett are the two who could be out of protocols in time to play in Friday’s game, as Lowry’s six-day quarantine could come to an end Thursday night depending on test results and Garrett’s status is still waiting to be confirmed as he returned an inconclusive test result.
In addition, the Heat has ruled out five players because of injuries: Bam Adebayo (thumb surgery), Dewayne Dedmon (knee sprain), Markieff Morris (whiplash), KZ Okpala (wrist sprain) and Victor Oladipo (knee injury recovery). Morris and Oladipo did not travel with the team to Houston, but the rest of Miami’s injured players are on the trip.
Also, Butler is listed as questionable to play Friday because of a sprained right ankle.
In an effort to have enough players to play Friday’s game, the Heat continued to bring in COVID-19 replacements.
Miami signed guard Kyle Guy, forward Haywood Highsmith and forward/center Aric Holman from the G League to 10-day contracts on Thursday as COVID-19 replacement players. The Heat is also expected to sign Chalmers and guard Nik Stauskas to 10-day deals on Friday, with the plan for both to be available against the Rockets as replacement players.
Stauskas, who was drafted with the eighth overall pick in 2014 out of Michigan, averaged 21.3 points while shooting 42.9 percent from the field and 35.2 percent on 7.6 three-point attempts per game, 5.8 rebounds and 4.4 assists in 12 games for the G League’s Grand Rapids Gold this season. He has averaged 6.8 points in 335 career NBA games, with his last NBA action coming on April 9, 2019 as a member of the Cleveland Cavaliers.
Chalmers, who won two NBA championships as the Heat’s starting point guard in 2012 and 2013, last played in an NBA game on April 11, 2018 as a member of the Memphis Grizzlies. He tore his right Achilles tendon in March 2016 and it derailed his NBA career, as he has since played in Italy, Greece, Puerto Rico and even in the halfcourt three-on-three Big3 basketball league in an effort to make his way back into the league.
With Chalmers, Guy, Highsmith, Holman and Stauskas, the Heat will have six COVID-19 replacement players on its roster although one, Cheatham, is in protocols. COVID-19 replacement players do not count toward a team’s salary cap or potential luxury tax payment.
As of Thursday night, the Heat was expected to have exactly the NBA-required minimum of eight players available for Friday’s game in Houston: Chalmers, Guy, Tyler Herro, Highsmith, Holman, Caleb Martin, Stauskas and Omer Yurtseven. Only three of those players (Herro, Martin and Yurtseven) began the season on Miami’s roster.
If Butler can play, the Heat will have nine available players for its matchup against the Rockets. If Garrett and Lowry are cleared, that would give Miami 11 available players on Friday.
Lowry remained in Miami on Thursday, but he could be cleared from protocols as soon as Thursday night depending on test results. If he’s cleared, he could potentially fly to Houston on Friday morning to play against the Rockets.
The NBA and National Basketball Players Association recently agreed to shorten the quarantine period from 10 days to six days for players and coaches who test positive for COVID-19 if testing data shows they’re no longer at risk to be infectious.
Under the new rules, Lowry’s six-day quarantine could end Thursday since he tested positive last Friday, with players considered to have tested positive on Day Zero. If he does not play against the Rockets, his next chance for a return will be Sunday against the Sacramento Kings at Golden 1 Center.
As for the Heat’s other players in protocols, Haslem and Strus’ six-day quarantine runs through Monday; Cheatham, Tucker and Vincent’s six-day quarantine runs through Tuesday; and Garrett and Robinson’s six-day quarantine runs through Wednesday.
The Heat’s coaching and training staffs are also short-handed because of COVID-19. Assistant coach Caron Butler and head athletic trainer Jay Sabol remain away from the Heat because they’re in protocols, and other personnel around the team have also tested positive in recent days.
“You have external anxiety about it, but you try not to live in fear either,” Spoelstra said earlier this month of the NBA’s COVID-19 outbreak. “We want our business to flourish. We understand that it’s not exactly how it used to be.”
This story was originally published December 30, 2021 at 11:33 AM.
