What will it be like for Max Strus to face the Heat on Wednesday? ‘It’s going to be weird’
Max Strus wanted to return to the Miami Heat as a free agent this past summer, but he didn’t expect to return to the Heat.
With rumblings that Strus was going to get outside offers from teams in the range of $15 million per season and the Heat entering free agency already well above the luxury-tax threshold, there was no realistic path for him to stay in Miami.
“I talked to Spo (Heat coach Erik Spoelstra) and we kind of knew early on that it wasn’t really going to work financially,” Strus said to the Miami Herald this week. “It is what it is. You can’t really do anything else about it. The numbers don’t work sometimes. It’s a business at the end of the day and everybody’s got to do what they got to do for themselves.”
That’s exactly what happened, as the Heat opted not to match outside offers to keep Strus and Strus went on to sign a four-year contract worth $62.3 million to join the Cleveland Cavaliers in free agency. Strus, who developed into one of Miami’s many undrafted success stories, left after spending the last three seasons with the Heat.
Now just five months after starting for the Heat in the NBA Finals, Strus will face his former team for the first time when the Heat continues its five-game trip on Wednesday against the Cavaliers at Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse (7:30 p.m., Bally Sports Sun). The Heat (9-5) is coming off a 118-100 win over the Chicago Bulls on Monday night at United Center to improve to 1-1 on its trip and earn in its eighth win in the last nine games following a 1-4 start to the season.
“It’s going to be fun. It’s going to be weird at first,” Strus, 27, said when asked what it will be like to face the Heat on Wednesday. “It kind of took me a while, like when I was in Cleveland for the first couple weeks saying, ‘Well, we did this in Miami.’ You know, I’m not on that team anymore so I got to stop saying ‘we.’ It’s ‘they’ now. I think it was a hard adjustment getting over that. But I think it will be weird since it’s so early in the season playing them, seeing everybody. I think it will be fun to compete against them. But it’s definitely going to be different.
“I still think I know most of the plays. So hopefully I’ll put myself in a good position defensively. I’m not sure what to expect, honesty. It’s my first time really doing this. It will be great to see them, get back together with friends. We were a really close-knit team.”
The connection with former Heat coaches and teammates is still there, but Strus is also enjoying his new beginning with the Cavaliers.
With the Cavaliers beginning a back-to-back set on Tuesday against the 76ers in Philadelphia before facing the Heat in Cleveland on Wednesday, Strus is averaging career-highs in points (14.3 per game), rebounds (5.8), assists (3.8) and minutes (35.1) while shooting 43.1 percent from the field and 36 percent from three-point range this season as part of a Cleveland starting lineup that also includes Donovan Mitchell, Darius Garland, Evan Mobley and Jarrett Allen.
“It’s been good,” Strus said of his first few months with the Cavaliers. “There’s definitely differences. Miami does things different than everybody and I don’t think you really know the extent of that until you go somewhere else. So it’s definitely been an adjustment, it’s been different. There’s definitely good and bad to both sides.
“There’s definitely some things I miss about Miami and there’s definitely some things I don’t miss. But overall it’s been a pretty easy adjustment. I think the traits and the characteristics that I learned by playing for the Miami Heat, it’s going to suit me very well for the rest of my career. I’ve come to notice that now that I’m in a different place.”
What has been the biggest difference that Strus has noticed from his Heat experience?
“I think everything in Miami is kind of on edge, kind of all serious, all business,” he said. “I think there’s times when you need that and times I think you can scale it back. I think over the past couple of years, Spo has done a good job of that. But I think just being here in Cleveland, I think it’s more lax but in a good way to where it allows you to be loose, it allows you to be yourself. There’s good and bad things to both sides of that.”
Before agreeing to join the Cavaliers this past summer, Strus turned to former Heat teammate and former longtime Cavaliers forward Kevin Love.
“Kevin definitely helped me a lot with my decision,” Strus said of Love, who spent eight-plus seasons with the Cavaliers before a contract buyout led him to the Heat midway through last season. “The minute I kind of knew Miami wasn’t going to happen, I knew Cleveland was an option. So obviously, when you’re going through this process, you try to find out everything you can about the organization, the coaches, the players and just try to get all the information possible so you can make your best decision. Kevin was huge in that.”
While Strus has moved on, he continues to emphasize the impact his Heat tenure has had on his NBA career.
Strus went undrafted out of DePaul in 2019 before earning a two-way contract from the Heat in the 2020 offseason and then being promoted to the Heat’s 15-man roster in the 2021 offseason. Along the way, Strus established himself as a quality NBA three-point shooter who also developed other areas of his game.
During Strus’ three seasons with the Heat, he appeared in 187 regular-season games (49 starts) and 43 playoff games (41 starts) while playing as a starter during the Heat’s deep postseason runs that ended in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference finals in 2022 and Game 5 of the NBA Finals earlier this year. Strus played in just two NBA regular-season games before joining the Heat.
“We just won so much,” Strus said of his time with the Heat. “It’s not easy to be successful in the NBA and, once I really started playing, to be on a team that went to Game 7 of the Eastern Conference finals and lost and then ran it back the next year and got to the Finals. I think winning that Game 7 in Boston [in the 2023 East finals] is probably going to be my best memory that I had from my time in Miami. Just getting over that hump, beating them and getting to the NBA Finals. A lot of people that play in the NBA never get the chance to do that.
“So that’s for sure going to be my best memory from being in Miami and sharing that moment with those guys in the locker room. We’ll always have that together and we’ll always be bonded by that. Definitely will always hold that one close to my heart and will always remember it.”
Strus will always be grateful for his Heat experience, too.
“There’s no hard feelings about me not being there,” Strus said. “I’ll always be grateful for my time in Miami, playing for Spo and with those teammates that I had there. But I’m on to other things now and trying to make the most out of it and it’s been a lot of fun so far.”
▪ The Heat ruled out Jamal Cain (G League), R.J. Hampton (sprained knee), Tyler Herro (sprained ankle), Nikola Jovic (G League), Love (personal reasons), and Cole Swider (G League) for Wednesday’s game against the Cavaliers.
Heat center Bam Adebayo is listed as probable with left hip contusion.
This story was originally published November 21, 2023 at 9:00 AM.
