The NBA Playoffs are finally here, but at what cost? This week, the community said goodbye to two certain Hall of Famers — Dwyane Wade and Dirk Nowitzki. Beyond their cemented statuses as adored fan favorites for nearly 20 years, the pair also boast an insane amount of professional achievements. Wade finishes his career with
Miami Heat
Welcome to The Whiteboard, catching you up every morning on what’s good around the NBA. Find The Whiteboard here on The Step Back, and subscribe here to get it delivered to you by email. Arguments and accolades. It’s what sports coverage is in 2019. If you don’t have a website that’s putting out a list of the
We’re finally entering the homestretch of the 2018-2019 NBA season. Every team in the league has either five or six games left in their season. With such little time left, the playoff picture is almost all but formed. The top eight teams in the Western Conference have all clinched playoff berths. What remains to be
Udonis Haslem restlessly stalks the sideline. During a timeout, he walks onto the court and takes a teammate aside to correct a mistake he noticed on the last possession. Pointing and gesturing, he spends most of the game coaching warmups. After all, playing time these days is scarce. But tonight is different. As starting center
Back in early December, the Miami Heat were struggling. Erik Spoelstra’s squad had a record of 10-14 and was in the early throes a six-game Western Conference road trip. Worse yet, the Heat were beset by injuries. For the second game of the trip — a roadie against the Clippers in LA — Miami knew
Throughout the week, Basketball Insiders has released post-deadline rankings on teams in various divisions around the NBA, and next up is the Southwest Division. The Southwest is incredibly diverse this season. It features a team that is gunning for the NBA Finals, teams that can’t decide to what extent they want to tank and everything
The play was a completely meaningless one, an unraveled thread in the boring rug of a late-December NBA game. Josh Richardson went in one direction and a pass from Justise Winslow sailed away in another one. The Miami Heat would eventually build a commanding double-digit lead against the Bucks; the turnover shouldn’t matter but it
The NBA provides the masses great drama during nearly every month of the year — February, for many reasons, is no different. Aside from the All-Star Game-related festivities, the trade deadline is always a popular period of time for the frenzied onlooker. On the surface level, the notion of asking whether the buyers will buy
Back by the popular demand of pretty much only myself, it’s the second annual edition of Around the NBA in 15 Trades. We’re taking all 30 teams in the lead up to the Feb. 7 trade deadline and finding a happy middle ground for prosperous barterdom. Day 7 takes us down to the Southeastern quadrant of
Dressed in pink and full of confidence, Justise Winslow called his own number. He dribbled past half court and signaled for a play. A few feet in front of him was Kawhi Leonard, perhaps the league’s best perimeter defender since Scottie Pippen. Winslow’s teammate Rodney McGruder came up to screen Leonard but scattered away at
The Miami Heat have some talent on their roster, but it quite literally carries a cost with it. Which of the Heat’s deals is the worst of the worst? Usually, it is good to be at the top spot of a power ranking column. This is not a usual situation. The Miami Heat have approximately
The Miami Heat weren’t lauded for signing Derrick Jones Jr., but he seems to be ready to develop into an effective contributor on the wing. Derrick Jones Jr. may not be a household name, or even a name familiar to most NBA fans, but the Miami Heat swingman might end up at that level some
On Thursday, the NBA released the first returns of voting for next month’s All-Star Game. Within the hour, people everywhere — both fans and media members alike — were sharing their thoughts. Of course, this is hardly a new phenomenon and, more often than not, the shakier results end up smoothing out by the final
In the NBA, tough decisions must be made. Sometimes it’s a front office deciding to go in another direction with a trade or release. Other times, it’s a coach having to pull a guy out of the active rotation. Most of the time, however, it’s a player figuring out the next move to benefit his
In the NBA, tough decisions must be made. Sometimes it’s a front office deciding to go in another direction with a trade or release. Other times, it’s a coach having to pull a guy out of the active rotation. Most of the time, however, it’s a player figuring out the next move to benefit his
The trade market has been an active one this season and, on December 15, trade chatter should only increase; players that signed contracts prior to September 15 will become eligible to be traded. While some big names have already been moved — Jimmy Bulter, Kyle Korver, George Hill, etc. — anything could happen between now
The Miami Heat are 11-15 and going nowhere fast. They could pivot into a rebuild this season, but it all comes down to what they do with Goran Dragic. When I think about the 2018-19 Miami Heat, I think about one of the more disappointing movie theater experiences of my lifetime. Spider Man 3 wasn’t
The Miami Heat refused to overpay for Jimmy Butler, but maybe being more aggressive would’ve been good for Miami. The Miami Heat very nearly traded for Jimmy Butler before the star guard ended up with the Philadelphia 76ers. Multiple reports came out that Miami and the Minnesota Timberwolves were on the precipice of making a
Trade season is fast approaching and rumors are running rampant across in the NBA. Just in the past month, we’ve had three trades executed, including two blockbuster moves that will surely make an impact on the association, regarding this year and in the future. The chatter is about to heat up, even more, this weekend.
Miami Heat center Hassan Whiteside was supposed to be the cornerstone of the team for years to come. Instead, he’s become one of the NBA’s biggest disappointments. Hassan Whiteside was supposed to be one of the better big men in the NBA right now. Instead, he’s become one of the league’s biggest disappointments. Looking at
Dwyane Wade doesn’t view it as anything special, but 1,000 games is a pretty big milestone to reach in the NBA. Dwyane Wade has had an illustrious career in the NBA, and he’s a surefire Hall of Famer. He’ll be remembered as one of the best, if not the best, players to ever wear a
As this season began, several NBA teams had to make huge decisions about offering extensions to players nearing the end of their rookie contracts. Twenty games later, how are those decisions looking? Before this year’s Halloween deadline for NBA teams to sign players in the fourth year of rookie contracts signed in 2015 to extensions,
As November draws to a close, the NBA has broached the quarter-season mark. Twenty games may not seem like a lot, but there is plenty that can be taken away from the play of any team through this point in the season. The 2018-19 season has been quite a surprising one so far, even more
The Philadelphia 76ers have found themselves in quite the predicament. On Wednesday, multiple people reported that, after all of the struggles he has endured in his short time in Philadelphia, former No. 1 overall pick Markelle Fultz would prefer a fresh start with a new team. While his agent has since denied that any formal trade
PARIS, FRANCE – AUGUST 25: Jimmy Butler reacts during the Ligue 1 match between Paris Saint-Germain (PSG) and SCO Angers at Parc des Princes on August 25, 2018 in Paris, France. (Photo by Xavier Laine/Getty Images) Fantasy football 2018, Week 4 rankings: Who to start and sit by Jon Dove LFA 51: Flyweight champion Sabina
Bam Adebayo needs representation. He’s earned his spot as the Miami Heat’s starting center. All that’s left is for someone to advocate for him and convince the mythological jury. There aren’t any lawyers in the room so this will have to suffice. Two years ago, the notion that someone other than Hassan Whiteside would have
In the long run, it could really go either way in regards to who was the winner of the Jimmy Butler trade. Philadelphia got an All-Star still in his prime who could potentially vault the franchise to the top of the east, but it could backfire if Butler takes his business elsewhere this summer. Minnesota
Prior to 2015 NBA Draft, pretty much everybody knew who the top three picks would be — Karl-Anthony Towns, D’Angelo Russell, and Jahlil Okafor were almost certainly coming off the board in some order; the only thing left up in the air was who would go where. Beyond that trio, one of the hottest names
With 21-year-old Derrick Jones Jr., it looks like the Miami Heat may have nudged another halfway-there youngster over the hump. The Miami Heat are a team that makes opposing fan bases gulp when they see them trying to finish off a development project their team failed. We’ve seen it many times under Erik Spoelstra, especially
It’s Jan. 25 and the Miami Heat are hosting the Sacramento Kings, but this isn’t just any late-regular season game. This is the debut of the Heat’s Vice jersey that will take the league by storm and, although they weren’t worn until 2018, the roots for the league’s most successful city edition uniform go back