Analysts discuss Heat and team’s chances. And Miami’s Super Bowl fallout, major TV changes
A six-pack of media notes on a Thursday:
▪ The fact the Heat is 27-29 outside the bubble since the start of the decade has prompted some pundits to suggest that Miami’s NBA Finals run was more a byproduct of the unique circumstances of the bubble than a genuine reflection of what this team would do under normal conditions.
But a couple of NBA voices with national platforms are bullish that the Heat — when healthy — can be similar in quality to the 2019-20 team.
“I have no worries about the Heat,” ESPN’s Kendrick Perkins said this week on The Jump. “They will be in the thick of things postseason time.”
He said his confidence is based on the presence of Jimmy Butler and Bam Adebayo, the team’s culture, and Erik Spoelstra - who Perkins has called the NBA’s best coach.
Amin Elhassan — the erudite former Phoenix Suns front office official who recently left ESPN to join Dan Le Batard’s new media venture — was asked how much of this team’s success can be attributed to the bubble and where Miami now stands in the Eastern Conference hierarchy.
“I would say the bubble played a role as a performance-enhancer,” Elhassan told me late last week, just before Miami began a three-game win streak that has the Heat at 10-14 entering a seven-game road trip that begins on Thursday in Houston.
“We knew going in who was going to benefit from this. It’s the most disciplined of teams, the ones you put in this arduous situation and it starts with Jimmy Butler saying, ‘I’m not bringing my family here anyway. I want to eat and drink basketball all day.’ It definitely helped them but not in terms of their performance being an aberration or a fluke.”
Elhassan, who does a show with Heat TV host Jason Jackson at midday Sundays on Sirius XM radio, said the other factor that helped the Heat in the bubble was the fact that Duncan Robinson, Tyler Herro and Kendrick Nunn began the season as “very young players who were inexperienced. No matter how good they are, you wonder can you win in playoff situations with young players, first year in the rodeo. What ended up happening over the [NBA pre-bubble hiatus] is those young guys got better. They absolutely improved. That helped them a lot.”
Besides extended absences by key players, Elhassan cites this as another reason the Heat has struggled this season:
“You’ve got [much less] practice; this is a team where practice is so important,” he said. “That’s been robbed of them. They have time to build the chemistry and get it right. They’ve got an opportunity to make the playoffs. There’s not a team you would say is way better than them.
“There’s a lot of ‘sky is falling talk’ that I don’t understand. There is no better example that this can be done than the Raptors, who went through a funk at the start of the year. Miami is primed to do that same sort of climb, but they also understand every loss is magnified.”
He said he does not believe the roster needs a major overhaul in part because they didn’t lose “because of a grand flaw or because the team is terrible. They lost because Bam Adebayo didn’t crowd the three-point line [late in the loss to Charlotte last week before the Hornets sent the game to overtime with a three-pointer], because Jimmy tried a three instead of” driving to the basket late in that loss.
“They don’t have a team like Brooklyn where they can make 100 mistakes and talent will overwhelm the opponent and they will come out on top,” he said.
I asked Elhassan what spot he would take the Heat if there were a draft where owners could select any Eastern Conference team they want to own this season. He said would pick the Heat fifth, behind [in some order], Brooklyn, Philadelphia, Milwaukee and Boston.
“I would take the Heat fifth for this season but Atlanta is interesting if Trae Young keeps growing,” he said. “I don’t think the Heat needs [an overhaul] but the specter of Bradley Beal hangs over everyone.”
Should the Heat make a bid for impending restricted free agents John Collins (Hawks) or Lauri Markkanen (Bulls) if either is made available before the March 25 NBA trade deadline?
“You’re rolling the dice the player is going to grow into the player you can’t get in free agency,” Elhassan said. “I like both of them. Collins would help you protect the defensive glass without sacrificing spacing [offensively].
“Markannen has a higher ceiling as an offensive player in the sense he’s a little more fluid. You can put the ball in his hands. Collins is more pick and pop but I don’t know if Markannen answers other questions you have about rebounding and ability to guard bigger people.”
Elhassan said the Heat can justify pursuing Collins or Markkanen (if either is made available), because either would be an asset that always can be flipped for a bigger star later, as Pat Riley once did with Lamar Odom, signing him and later using him in a trade to get Shaquille O’Neal. Markannen is out two to four weeks with a sprained shoulder.
▪ With Tom Brady at the epicenter, Sunday’s Super Bowl was watched by 57.6 percent of TV households in Boston, compared with 52.3 percent in Tampa. Despite the adoration for Brady in New England, that’s a bit surprising, considering Tampa played in the game and hosted the game.
Among 56 major markets, Miami-Fort Lauderdale had the lowest rating (36.8 percent of homes with televisions). It isn’t unusual for South Florida to rank last for a Super Bowl.
Nationally, the Super Bowl averaged its lowest rating since 1969 — viewed in 38.2 percent of TV households - and produced its smallest audience since 2006 with 91.6 million viewers, likely the result of the lopsided score. Another five million watched the game on streaming services.
▪ A few notable changes in the scheduling of the men’s NCAA Basketball Tournament, which will be held entirely in multiple venues in Indianapolis:
The games during the Sweet 16 round will be held on a Saturday through Tuesday, as opposed to the usual Thursday through Sunday. So on Monday, March 29, CBS will air two regional finals in prime time. TBS will air the other two regional finals in prime time on Tuesday, March 30.
Also, the First Four games have been moved from Tuesday and Wednesday to Thursday, with all four games airing that day on TBS and truTV.
That will result in the Rounds of 64 and 32 of the Tournament being played Friday through Monday, as opposed to the usual Thursday through Sunday.
CBS gets the entire Final Four this year; TBS and CBS alternate that event during the current contract.
▪ Sports Media Watch did a good job chronicling the decline in ratings for major sports events since the pandemic began. Here’s the final list:
Super Bowl: Tampa Bay-Kansas City was down 9 percent from last February’s Chiefs-49ers game in Miami.
College football championship: Alabama-Ohio State in Miami was down 27 percent from last January’s LSU-Clemson game.
World Series: Dodgers-Tampa Bay was down 30 percent from the Nationals-Astros 2019 series.
NBA Finals: Heat-Lakers in October 2020 was down 49 percent from Toronto-Golden State in June 2019.
Kentucky Derby: The race, moved to September, was down 49 percent from the May 2019 race.
Final round of the Masters: Down 58 percent, presumably because the final round of the tournament was played in November — opposite NFL games on Fox — for the first time instead of April.
Stanley Cup Final: The September series between Tampa Bay and Dallas was down 61 percent from the June 2019 Finals between St. Louis and Boston.
▪ If the Tokyo Olympics happen amid the pandemic, NBC will air the opening ceremonies live from 6:55 a.m. to 11 a.m on July 23 - a change from TV approach’s during past Olympics held in countries with a significant time difference from the United States. NBC will replay the opening ceremonies in prime time.
▪ Quick stuff: The Marlins and Sinclair/Fox Sports continue to move closer to a new TV deal, but there’s still work to be done. The question is whether it can be finished in time for Fox Sports Florida to carry spring training games... ESPN on Sunday will air an E:60 special marking the 20th anniversary of Dale Earnhardt’s 2001 death in the Daytona 500.... Nobody narrates “a man has run on the field” better than Kevin Harlan. Here’s his call of Sunday’s incident during the Super Bowl.
This story was originally published February 11, 2021 at 1:03 PM.
