Not every player enjoys the Miami Heat “culture” and experience.<\/p>\n
Markieff Morris, who was added as a free agent in 2021 to provide frontcourt depth, was injured in a scuffle against the Denver Nuggets when he was pushed in the back by Nikola Jokic. His teammates rallied to his defense at the time, but Morris said recently on “The OGs Show” with Udonis Haslem (who was one of those teammates at the time) and Mike Miller that he felt the Heat management turned its backs on him.<\/p>\n
Morris started by apologizing to Haslem — Mr. Heat Culture — in advance for his criticism, which got the long-time Heat captain to laugh. <\/p>\n
“Nah, hell, say what you gotta say,” Haslem said. <\/p>\n
So Morris did.<\/p>\n
“They (bleeped) me over there, because they made me work so hard to get back,” Morris said. “When they know… and it was like a whole misconception of like, how the injury really went, right? It was like a two week injury. I got cleared in like two weeks but they made it seem — because Miami wouldn’t let me back on the court — that I was injured for (bleeping) six months. It was whiplash. I literally got whiplash and was right back.”<\/p>\n
Morris noted that he was practicing regularly, and Haslem saw him do so, to which Haslem agreed.<\/p>\n
“I practiced for like six (bleeping) months,” Morris said. <\/p>\n
He said that “Miami really didn’t want me back on the court, just basically like they wrote me off,” and he believes that caused the rest of the league to do the same for a while. But Morris did get back into the NBA, and he said that playing for the past four years has proven the injury wasn’t permanent. <\/p>\n
The Heat do have a history of being careful with injuries, and a bit cryptic with the media and public in their disclosure of timetables. As the organization says itself, frequently, “We’re not for everybody.” They even printed t-shirts saying the sa<\/p>\n
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