Waiters to debut. And not playing Ellington makes Spoelstra ‘sick to my stomach.’
CLEVELAND - Heat guard Dion Waiters, who underwent ankle surgery last January, on Wednesday will be active for a game for the first time since Dec. 22, 2017.
Coach Erik Spoelstra said Waiters will be available for the 7 p.m. game against the Cavaliers, but Dwyane Wade will be out due to illness.
“He’ll have to be patient [and] that’s a word not in his vocabulary,” Spoelstra said. “I don’t expect him to be happy about being patient. But there are no guarantees if he will get in tonight. It will have to happen naturally. This is a major hurdle to get to this point. We can understate how far he’s come in a year. He’s come a long way. We’re just glad to have him back in uniform and available.”
This was Waiters’ first road trip since his January ankle surgery. He said there won’t be a big adjustment since he last played because “plays are pretty much the same. Couple new sets, but at the end of the day, it’s basketball. I’m just excited to be back. Traveling, haven’t done it in so long.”
Waiters said “there will be pain here and there” with the surgically-repaired left ankle “because it’s new but it is nowhere near before I got surgery…. Now it’s about going back out there and creating memories.... I’m excited about all of that, the ups and downs, the lows, the highs, just being back out there, seeing your name on the back of the jersey and what it represents.”
The Heat hasn’t had all of its rotation pieces available since Nov. 28, 2017, and with Goran Dragic out until mid-February after knee surgery, that will remain the case even with Waiters’ return.
ELLINGTON WAITS
Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said he’s “sick to my stomach” about not finding more playing time for guard Wayne Ellington this season, and Ellington on Wednesday did not rule out going to Heat officials at some point and asking them to find a place where he could play more, though he hasn’t done that to this point.
Asked if he could envision going to team president Pat Riley and coach Erik Spoelstra and expressing that it might be best if the Heat trades him to a team where he could play more, Ellington said:
“Anything is a possibility. I can’t sit here and say yes or no to a question like that right now. But at the same time, I want to play but I want it to be with these guys, with my brothers. Hopefully we can work it out.”
But Ellington said he has not had that potential trade conversation with Riley or Spoelstra at this point.
Ellington has gone from setting the NBA’s all-time record for three-pointers by a reserve player last season to being a healthy scratch in 11 games this season.
That thought has “absolutely” occurred to him. “You come off your best season in your career to this situation, of course it crosses your mind. I’m human. A lot of things cross your mind. It’s a tough situation for anybody.
“I appreciate [James Johnson] saying he has empathy for me. Those are my guys. It’s a tough situation, tough job. Just going to do what I can, stay ready, stay in shape. When I’m called on, I’ll be ready.”
Ellington returned to the Heat on a one-year, $6.3 million contract after setting career highs with those 227 threes and in scoring at 11.2 per game.
But he missed the first four games this season with a left ankle injury, then was a healthy scratch for his first three games back. Over the Heat’s past 12 games, he has played just 32 minutes and been a healthy scratch in eight of them.
Among the reasons for his lesser role: Spoelstra has wanted to give more minutes to Derrick Jones Jr, and in a change from last year’s postseason, Tyler Johnson is getting many of Ellington’s minutes.
“It’s something that’s very difficult and these are the decisions that this position is required to make,” Spoelstra said of Ellington’s lack of playing time. “They’re not easy decisions. I’ll be frank, it makes me sick to my stomach that I can’t find the minutes for Wayne. Our team went through an adjustment period in December, some other guys stepped up, some lineup started to emerge. That’s not an indictment on his play. He’s professional and mature enough to know he just has to stay with it and it’ll come around his way again. But that doesn’t take away, at all, how difficult it is. I have great empathy for a guy like Wayne.”
Ellington is averaging 8.3 points in 20 games, shooting 35.8 percent from the field and 36.5 percent on threes. He said “staying in the gym [is] therapeutic to me.”
A trade might be the best solution because the Heat is trying to reduce its $9.7 million luxury tax bill, which will be set on the final day of the regular season. The Lakers reportedly have interest.
Of Jones Jr., Spoelstra said: “He’s making me play him. With his minutes, it’s tough to take him out.”
WADE ILL
Wade, because of illness, will miss his first game back in Cleveland since he was traded to the Heat last February.
Wade recently told The Athletic that while watching the Cleveland-Golden State NBA Finals last season, “I’m watching it like, ‘That’s why I went there, to play in this series.’ Of course that was my reaction.”
Wade said even before signing with Cleveland before last season, he knew James’ “ultimate goal was to be in Los Angeles. He recruited me and he talked to me about signing there (Cleveland), and I said, ‘Listen, I know you might not be there long, you’re gonna be a free agent and there are some things that might happen, and we’ll have a conversation.’ I just thought I’d make it through the season first.”
This story was originally published January 2, 2019 at 12:39 PM.
