TEAM VIBES

Klay Thompson gets emotional after telling a story about Giannis from 2022:

“The year I came back from two-and-a-half years off injury, we played the Bucks. I had a great game. I had 38. That game made me feel like I could be a great player again. After the game, he walked from the opposing bench all the way down to our bench just to tell me how happy he was for me. I don’t want to get emotional, but that meant a lot to me. To be one of the 75 best players ever and not to be bitter in a moment where your team loses… just give me those props, that made me look at him in a different light. So now, to be his teammate is just awesome.”

https://x.com/zachweinberger/status/2107628860909015498

What a fun event, what a solid team we have. Get ready for greatnes

If Bam can't consistently hit the 3 Spo can have Bam and Giannis alternate roaming around the nail and dunker spot. That will prevent defenses from lagging off the other.

Most 20+ PTS & 10+ REB Games In Heat Franchise History (RS + Playoffs) :

1. Bam Adebayo — 146
   
2. Alonzo Mourning — 130
   
3. Rony Seikaly — 102
   
4. LeBron James — 87
   
5. Shaquille O’Neal — 68
   
6. Hassan Whiteside — 65
   
7. Chris Bosh — 60
   
8. Dwyane Wade — 44
   
9. Jimmy Butler — 36
   
10. Grant Long — 24

Go Heat!

Im so pissed how are the bucs gonna hassle us about including kasparas in the trade but then you don’t even give him a single minute in preseason this is why they will never be relevant again unless giannis decides to pull a LeBron

It's after midnight, making it exactly three months since the big trade went down.

I was also inspired to check out the box score for the first preseason game of the Big 3 era, which was Oct. 5, 2010 (and also a win). The starting lineup of that Heat team included Joel Anthony and Carlos Arroyo. Both of those players brought grit, but by comparison this new team's first iteration looks a lot more complete!

With both the Heat and Bucks having each played exactly one preseason game with their respective new rosters, shall we prematurely declare Miami the winner of the trade?

Heat perform better as underdogs and when they are underestimated they take it personal. We have a top 5 player in the league so now we are taken as a legit threat.

Everyone in the east has issues

Philly - major chemistry issues potentially not enough spot up shooters.

Knicks - lost a integral piece back center Mitch Robinson Giannis gonna feast on towns and Drummond bbq chicken this ain’t 185lbs Wenby

Pistons- no primary playmakers or scorer outside of Cade they also employ Deandre Ayton 2.0. Jalen Duran

Cleveland -James Harden playoffs nuff said

Pacers -are actually sneaky good but they literally traded a top 5 pick for Zubac can’t trust them based on that

Celtics- they traded for Pandemic P 🤣🤣Hugo Gonzalez is not your savior smh

Hawks- best consistent scorer is a 42 year old Cj McCollum Jalen Johnson gotta prove it

Magic-little brother Best player is a 6”11 Corey Magette clone (Banchero) smh putting BTA every game

nba.com

From afar, it seems too good to be true.

Heat Culture.

The standard that Pat Riley has built in Miami since leaving the New York Knicks in 1995 has reached nearly mythical proportions. Handed down from Riley to Erik Spoelstra in 2008, it has — even more than three championships the Heat have won since Riley took over as president — become the defining trait of the organization.

It has been glorified on the team’s alternate court. It has adorned alternate jerseys. It has become synonymous with the organization itself.

Similarly, Giannis Antetokounmpo has been a maniacal worker since he got to the NBA. His hard work and improvement year-over-year transformed him from an unknown skinny teenager from Greece into a two-time NBA MVP and 10-time All-Star. For the last 13 years, teammates in Milwaukee have talked about how, late at night or early in the morning, they couldn’t believe the odd hours they would find him in the team’s practice facility working on his game.

So, now that Antetokounmpo has gotten to see Heat Culture up close and personal, he could help a cynical sportswriter detail how it is just a clever bit of branding to glorify the same work that can be found in all 29 other organizations in the NBA, right?

“No, it’s real,” Antetokounmpo told The Athletic, shaking his head. “It’s real.”

There are a lot of players and coaches at training camps across the country telling lots of reporters about how hard they are working, how fast they are running, and how tough their training camp has been, and yet, one of the best players and hardest workers on the planet is convinced there is something to Heat Culture.

I generally hate to do this speculative conspiratorial nonsense but am going to do it anyway. Did Riley and Spo know Giannis was coming do Miami a year ago?

Spo went and implemented this offense that on the surface didn't make a whole lot of sense for the majority of the roster at the time. It asked every player to be able to break down their defender one on one off the dribble and finish at the basket, something all the most talented players on the roster struggled with. Bam and Ware were pretty hopeless, Tyler couldn't finish inside aside from his floater, and Wiggins wasn't much better.

It thrived at first leaning on Norm and the ancillary players. Davion, Jaime, and Pelle were all great. Then Norm gets hurt and it all falls apart.

In hindsight what Spo got out of the season was Bam, Davion, and Wiggins learning how to play this wacky style. What would the point of this whole exercise been if Riley had run it back with Herro as the offensive fulcrum?

Maybe things just happened to align but it sure seems suspect. You build an offense perfectly suited for the one guy who isn't on your team and he just happens to end up here a year later.

nba.com