Omer Yurtseven’s ‘whirlwind’ offseason continues in Las Vegas with Heat summer league team
It has been a hectic week for Miami Heat center Omer Yurtseven.
Yurtseven helped lead Turkey to a win over Great Britain in a World Cup qualifier game in England last Sunday. He then took a four-hour flight home to Turkey to spend some time with family and friends before jumping on a 13-hour flight to Miami and eventually boarding a five-hour flight to join the Heat’s summer league team in Las Vegas on Wednesday night.
“It has been a little crazy. It’s a whirlwind,” said Yurtseven, who was not with the Heat for its three-game stint at the California Classic to open summer league because of obligations with the Turkish national team. “But taking it one flight at a time.”
Yurtseven, 24, and the Heat are also taking it one game at a time. Yurtseven won’t play in the Heat’s first Las Vegas Summer League game on Saturday against the Boston Celtics because of a quad injury suffered during his time with the Turkish national team.
Whether Yurtseven will play in any of the Heat’s five games in Las Vegas is unclear. Following Saturday’s matchup against the Celtics, Yurtseven will have a few days to continue his recovery before Miami’s next summer league game on Tuesday against the Atlanta Hawks (7 p.m., NBA TV).
“We’ll just see how it goes, see what the doc says over the weekend and we’ll just kind of take it day by day from there,” Heat assistant coach and summer league head coach Malik Allen said.
Yurtseven doesn’t have much to prove in summer league after dominating the summer circuit last year. He averaged 22.4 points and 11.2 rebounds per game for the Heat’s summer team last year, which was enough to get Miami to sign him to a two-year contract to get him on its 15-man roster before another team did.
Still, Yurtseven hopes to be able to play in some games in Las Vegas in the coming days.
“I do want to play. That’s the reason I’m here,” said Yurtseven, who is entering the second season of the two-year contract he signed with the Heat last summer. “I’m just here to pretty much get better and I think playing is the best way to do it.”
Considering Yurtseven is one of three players on the Heat’s summer league team who is currently on track to be on the 15-man roster next season, the organization will surely take a cautious approach with him and his quad injury. Yurtseven is due to make $1.8 million this upcoming season.
Simply having Yurtseven around Heat coaches and staff during the summer is a positive. Heat coach Erik Spoelstra, assistant coach Chris Quinn, general manager Andy Elisburg and assistant general manager Adam Simon are among those in Las Vegas to take in summer league and all the league-wide meetings and discussions that surround it.
“I was just talking to him, I said: ‘You’ve been through it last year. You’ve played in games, played well in games. You’re a Heat guy,’” Allen said of a discussion he had with Yurtseven following Friday’s practice. “So just being here, being a part of this is beneficial for us and it’s beneficial for him just to be around it and for the other guys. He’s talking to these guys just like guys spoke to him and talked to him and helped him along.
“You’re here, so just be a part of it even if you may not be able to play [Saturday]. Just stay connected and he was. He was in the meeting [Thursday], at practice [Friday]. So that’s the biggest thing, just staying connected with the group and the team and with us.”
Most of Yurtseven’s playing time as a rookie last season came during a six-week stretch while starting center Bam Adebayo sat out because of thumb surgery. Yurtseven flashed his intriguing offensive skills and potential during that time, averaging 13.6 points, 13.9 rebounds and 2.9 assists in a starting role in the 10 games leading up to Adebayo’s Jan. 17 return.
Once Adebayo recovered from thumb surgery and returned, Yurtseven again dropped out of the rotation and logged double-digit minutes in just six games over the final three months of the regular season. The Heat went with a center rotation of Adebayo as the starter and Dewayne Dedmon as the backup for most of the season when they were both available.
One of Yurtseven’s goals is to earn more consistent playing time this upcoming season. Dedmon re-signed with the Heat in free agency, but Yurtseven is expected to have an opportunity to compete with him for the backup center role.
“Still the same hunger,” Yurtseven said when asked what’s different about this summer compared to last summer when he was still working for an NBA contract. “I think overall it’s just about wanting to get better and that summer league helped me get better. I think it helped me just jump a level above and have that confidence. This year is the same. I want to improve and jump another level.”
At 6-11 and 275 pounds, Yurtseven has focused his summer work on speed and force to become a more effective and versatile defender. Heat president Pat Riley listed “strength, mobility, foot work, back to the basket strength” earlier this offseason as areas that Yurtseven needs to improve in.
And with a void at power forward following the departure of veteran P.J. Tucker in free agency, there’s also the possibility that Yurtseven could be asked to play alongside Adebayo more often this upcoming season. To do that, he’ll need to prove he can be a reliable three-point shooter for spacing purposes after making just 1 of his 11 attempts from three-point range last regular season.
“I think it’s just us playing and having some time together,” Yurtseven said of possibly playing more minutes with Adebayo. “I think just seeing us play and dominate the boards and just pretty much dominating all around is going to convince [coach Erik Spoelstra] that we can be a lethal force.”
The Heat and Yurtseven agree that more in-game experience will help fast-track his development. But it remains to be seen if Yurtseven will be healthy enough to get that opportunity in Las Vegas Summer League.
“I think the big thing with him is just an opportunity to continue to play is what he really, really needs,” Allen said. “I think that’s really what he needs. It’s not like a summer checklist of two to three things skills-wise. I think those things will come because he’s so talented offensively. It’s just time of playing basketball on the court, that’s really what he needs.”
