The Heat’s injuries in 2023 are testing their “next man up” philosophy. It is very difficult to win every night in the NBA, but it gets even tougher when players are injured. Jimmy Butler didn’t play against the Clippers and the Heat lost. The Heat are playing the Lakers tonight and they have guys out. A season-ending injury would be a killer for the team. The team isn’t leading the NBA though, in the total amount of games missed.
The Heat are the best of the worst
Check out the NBA INJURED LIST TRACKER here from the website spotrac.com. The Memphis Grizzlies actually are the league leaders in total amount of games missed. They have 157 total games missed by players due to injury. The next teams are Charlotte, Detroit and then the Heat. The Lakers are #6 are on this list. The worst thing any fan wants to hear is that players are injured for a long period of time. Check out this article here from SI.com–the Heat started well on the road trip winning at Golden State where Coach Spolestra put out his 17th different starting lineup this season.
The Heat are not the oldest team in the league
In this article here from Fadeaway World, the Heat are not the oldest team in the league. They are the fifth oldest team. The oldest team are the Clippers with their Big 4 of Westbrook, Harden, Leonard and George. Next up are the Suns, the Raptors, Mavericks and the Celtics. The Heat have five players that were born after the year 2000 and seven that were born between 1995 and 2000. What does that tell you? They don’t have babies on the team. The Trail Blazers, the Spurs and the Thunder are the three top youngest teams. Lots of attitude, lots of ego and probably no professional players, yet.
The Heat’s combination of young and old players
This is the winning formula that will mitigate the Heat’s recent injury problems. In this article here from ESPN last year, the Heat franchise wants “professionals.” Any fan would call these players, “undrafted.” In reality, these are players that WANT to practice, that WANT to be in the gym all day, that play well on the road. They know that although physical talent will get you into the NBA, it is a professional mindset that will carry you through.
All the young players are conditioned into this mindset and it means that they will constantly be working and constantly be improving. In the Heat organization, they call it HEAT CULTURE. Nothing explains it better than this article here from SI.com that highlighted Bill Simmons (Miami Heat All-time hater and Boston Celtics fan) which said that he fears the Heat more than the talented Bucks. Check out this article here on our site by Nik Land that explains the East leading Celtics are looking for depth.
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