MIAMI — This time, there was no mention of a planned “intervention,” which, if nothing else, shows a change in approach from Pat Riley and the long-held preference of the Miami Heat president for bigger lineups.
In 2018, after a season similar to this past one for the Heat, Riley did not hold back when it came to his desire to see coach Erik Spoelstra play big men Hassan Whiteside and Bam Adebayo more often in tandem.
“There has to be an intervention,” Riley said eight years ago at his 2018 season-ending media session. “I am going to be the intervener.”
Flash forward now to Monday’s season-ending media session at Kaseya Center, when the topic turned to Spoelstra’s limited use — and seemingly limited trust — in the Ware-Adebayo pairing.
This time, Riley put the onus on the younger of his two big men — to a degree.
“As far as Kel’el and Bam, I like it,” said Riley, who until the end was a far bigger proponent of Whiteside-Adebayo than Spoelstra. “You’ve got to be committed to it, one way or the other.”
At times, Spoelstra was just that, committed, concluding the season with Ware and Adebayo starting in tandem, and then opening the Heat’s lone postseason game, the play-in overtime road loss to the Charlotte Hornets, with the alignment.
But at other times, Ware’s play had Spoelstra going small to the degree of utilizing small forwards Andrew Wiggins or Pelle Larsson in the power rotation.
“And so he was up and down with it for a number of reasons,” Riley said. “And I think that’s where he’s going to have to, along with me, have a discussion about how are we going to be successful on the floor with the guys that we have that we think have a huge upside.”
Riley then continued with praise of Ware.
“I love Kel’el and what he’s done,” he said. “He’s had monstrous games.
“He’s a very versatile player. But sometimes you’ve got to stay with it. You simply have to stay with it when young players are not performing at their highest and they have these bad games.”
At midseason, patience with Ware seemingly was at a Spoelstra low point, when he said of the 2024 first-round pick out of Indiana, “I get it with some young players. You sometimes subconsciously play poorly to say, ‘Hey, I’ll play poorly until you play me the minutes I think I deserve. Then I’ll play well.’ That’s not how it works.”
Spoelstra walked those comments back before the following game, saying: “I didn’t articulate that in a great way, and that wasn’t fair to Kel’el. What I’ll say is I’m fully invested and invigorated about the opportunity to develop Kel’el, and our staff feels the same way and we’re gonna give him everything we have to make sure he becomes the player that he wants to become, that we need him to become.”
From there, there was a rollercoaster for the balance of the season in terms of role and minutes.
And yet, if there is a blockbuster personnel move to be made, there might be another Whiteside-Ware parallel.
A year after Riley’s “intervention” quote regarding Whiteside, Whiteside was dealt to the Portland Blazers in the 2019 offseason trade that delivered Jimmy Butler to the Heat from the Philadelphia 76ers.
This summer, if there is to be the type of franchise-altering trade Riley believes possible, Ware almost assuredly would be among the trade components.
So any sort of “intervention” or anything similar likely will be put on hold.
For his part, Ware said he would savor the opportunity to make more of the pairing.
“I feel like if we got more reps at that, then I feel like it would have progressed more,” he said during his recent season-ending media session. “But like I said, it’s going to take reps. So, I mean, obviously, I would hope to continue that.”
Adebayo also sees something there.
“I feel like Kel’el is a lot more comfortable when I’m out there,” he said.
The final vote, for all the Riley influence, remains with Spoelstra, who closed the season stressing, “If we play two bigs, it has to be dominant defensively and on the glass, in particular. But you need that kind of versatility in this league now. You need to be able to play big.”