First Look at Giannis’ Miami Heat + Season Predictions

0:00Get a letter right. I see sound waves. Which hasn't happened before. Okay, maybe it's working. All right, let's try it. Let's rock and roll. And welcome in to another episode of Heat of the Moment. My name is Micah. I am joined as always by my fellow host and friend, Lino. And Heat fans, we have some exciting things happening in our lives right now. We've already had a preseason game, the official debut of Yana Sancta de Cumbo in a Miami Heat, Jersey. Tons of thoughts about said game and what to take from all those different things on offense, on defense. We'll cover all that. We have a color of large and extension to discuss. And then towards the end of the episode, we will be getting into some season predictions.

1:02So to start things off, Lino, I think let's start with the news and notes first, as much as I am excited to get into the preseason game. But a pretty big piece of news happens since our last episode, which is that Pelow Larson signed a four year, $60 million extension to stay with the Miami Heat. What was your initial reaction to seeing that Pelow extension? It's all in line with what I think real Pelaheads have envisioned for the future of his career. I think anybody that has been miserable enough to watch Miami Heat basketball over the past two years knows that the silver lining is that we have a real guy in this second round draft pick that we picked up a couple seasons ago, who's really developed, who is a real gamer and knows how to place in freaking basketball. It was apparent from his very first summer league game to his next summer league in any of the minutes that he was able to kind of grab onto over these past couple seasons.

2:02And so it's really exciting to see that we'll be having him long term as more eyes turn to the Miami Heat because of obvious reasons where even see more people talk about Pelow, especially after this recent European bout that he spent with his home country team, Sweden, right? Yeah, until he was playing for Sweden, he played really well. It was very exciting. And he's shown that he's taken some leaps with each off season. So well deserved extension. Gonna be a great young town to have on the team. It seems like Janis already loves him. So that's already a plus. But even in a vacuum, it's just a talented basketball player that's really, truly defining for heat culture. So really excited to have him here. Yes, yeah, I thought it's a great signing. I thought the money was a fair deal that could become a great value if he takes a leap. But like most NBA fans, I follow a lot of different like national media members. It cover all these things. And I was surprised how much negativity there was towards this contract. Of course, as a heat fan and somebody that's very high on

3:05Pelow, my initial reaction was just like, okay, they're not watching the heat. There's no way you could see Pelow play. And just to give people context of the deal. So like we said, it's four years, $60 million. That averages $15 million annually. It's not exactly $15 million annually. It has raises within it. But that is going to be less than 8% of the cap for the life of that contract. It starts at like 7.5% of the cap. And at the last year, I think it gets up to like 8.1 or something. So this isn't a large contract. And for the life of the contract, it's going to be less than the non-tax payer mid-level, which in my opinion, if Pelow had gotten to free agency, if he has a good year this year, that easily could have been on the table for him. So I know some people are saying, like I know I heard John Hollinger saying, well, he's a second-round pick. He's never made any money before. You could really squeeze him here. And you could get him to sign for three years, 33 million. But I appreciate the heat not being too scared away

4:06by how badly the Nico Yovich's extension went and just going and fully sending it with Pelow, giving him a market value deal that I think he could grow into. And to be honest, I think he's shown a lot more than Nico has at this point. It doesn't feel like that. Absolutely. As much of a gamble as that was. Yeah, congrats to Pelow. That's a legit role player. You know, Havana contract that, you know, well, we'll talk about it, but there's upside in Pelow for sure. The other only other really bit of notes are news would be that Drew Smith and Keshav Johnson both have some soft tissue issues going on. Drew Smith with a calf strain, Keshav Johnson with a hamstring strain. It doesn't sound like it's anything super serious, but they will miss a couple of weeks. Mostly just feel for those guys because the preseason is really an ample opportunity for them to put some minutes out there. Like we saw in the first preseason game in the second half, it was exclusively bench guys playing. So especially for someone like Keshav who actually like is on the roster bubble,

5:07that would have been a good opportunity for him, but as their opportunities go away, it definitely will create opportunities for guys like Ryan Conwell, Trade Donaldson, and you guys like that. Yeah, I was Drew Smith, you know, when you hear about a calf strain, it gets kind of scary for a guy who's had an unfortunate history with injuries, and especially what we know now in regards to connecting that to larger, more life-changing injuries. I just hope that he gets a full recovery and it was good to hear that Spode didn't think it was something that was gonna be a long setback, but just kind of the nature of basketball kind of injury. And so, yeah, we're excited to get both of those guys back on the floor. We're gonna need everybody through this season. So hope they can get healthy fast. Yes, and we're recording this on Tuesday, October 6th. So the pink red and white scrimmage game is happening tonight. And I saw that Andrew Wiggins and Pella Larson are not playing. It's not a real game, so they don't have to talk about an injury report, but I saw some people were thinking,

6:09maybe it was like an illness or something. Yeah, unrelated, but related to that, I saw Tray Donalds and twist Ryan out of his damn shoes. Yes. That's a very well-opted man. If anyone is not seated, definitely check out that clip on Twitter. It will be on your timeline if you're a heat fan and it is very falling. But yes, that's a news and notes. I think it's time to get into some preseason hoops. There were a ton of questions, how the how's the offense gonna look as the defense gonna be different. How are they gonna adjust? But Lino, I think the best place to start was just how did it feel to see Yachtes, Antichoubo put on a heat jersey? And even though it was preseason, still play in an actual NBA game for the Miami Heat. I would just kind of spend many minutes just looking at the Miami Heat Instagram page and just looking at photos of him, like in real time in a live Miami Heat Jersey, playing legitimate American basketball. It's just surreal to look at,

7:10even not even thinking about watching it live and like watching it in real time. Just looking at him in a Miami Heat uniform is something that would have brought a mint to joy to me years ago and still does today. It's just an awesome feeling. He looks great. He makes basketball look real easy and I just cannot wait to watch 82 games of that. Yeah, it was just beautiful. There's not, I mean, it's just, it's one of those things like, yes, you know, you can critique different things. You can worry about like, well, what if this happens or what if that happens? But I think right now the most important thing is heat fans is to enjoy this. There will be years from now where we don't have draft picks. Everyone's old, but the part you enjoy is right now and whether it's preseason, a scrimmage, enjoy it because we can just go ahead and get into the offense. But I mean, obviously we know how good Yannis is. We know how good other players are. We watch every team in the league, but we're focused on the heat and it does feel different

8:10when it's somebody playing on your favorite team. And it was even in that Toronto preseason game, I was like, it just is astounding when you have a top five player. If there just is nothing like it. Like for instance, Yannis is making it easy. Yeah, Yannis is being guarded by Colin Murray Boyles. Colin Murray Boyles is an excellent young defender, like very, very good. And it really, I think you could look at the last 10 years probably and even like some of it like prime Jimmy, you would have been like, ah, that's going to be a tough matchup for him. Like he's going to have to get a switch. Yannis, three Raptors had to be on him. Like it was it was a push cross or it was semi transition. And it's just like this elite defender. This push cross is so freaking lethal. Like it makes it look so easy. You know, that's all you have to do to score a buck. It's not going to be a NBA. It really is. It's a move. I, as like a, you know, pick up basketball player have never fully understood why it works so well. And I think it's because my shoulders aren't like two, two by fours

9:13because he pushes it. And then if his shoulders end you, it's over. He's taking two steps. We saw multiple an1s in this game. But Lino, I think for Yannis, the part to me that was most impressive was his passing in this game. What did you think of the looks he was creating for other guys? I was really impressed. It's like, it's not flashy. It just works. He just knows where the open guy is every time because he knows somebody is going to be open. It's the natural culmination of a career of attracting three to four players from the opponent. You just get this instinct and he's leaned into that and he always makes sure to take advantage of that. And other players are reaping the benefits, particularly Andrew Wiggins. I think I like seven open threes. Did not have to do anything, but take Ketchy's two threes for mostly game and play defense. And so it's really awesome to see that he can manage that so well because we do have options. Like he's so good at that. And I wasn't super concerned because Bayam is still such a great passer.

10:16Davey on Mitchell was such an efficient playmaker when it comes to passing and getting the offense going. So I wasn't super concerned, but I did know. I was like, he's not, you know, Nikolayokit by any means, but seeing him in real time, it's like this guy is going to make the right pass almost every time. Yeah, it's to me who is interesting watching his playmaking style. Again, seeing the honest play a lot, seeing him play against him, watching my team play against him in the playoffs. But you do have a new appreciation for it when you're seeing someone, especially in what is a unique system for Miami. And we'll talk about the offense as a whole later. But yeah, to me, watching him, it reminded me almost of like a very, very talented mobile quarterback. Like you might think of someone like Yoke or maybe Luca who's more almost like a pocket passer, like they run in a pick and roll, they're doing the cross-core at Bayonis. It's just a stampede. Sometimes even like Zadda control, someone's trying to take a charge, sliding up underneath them. But if you actually watch where that pass hits those guys,

11:19it's in the shooting pocket every time. And that passes them open too. There's a couple times where the pass went to where Andrew Wiggins would be open, where Davey Allen would be open. Yeah, so it's like watching, you know, I said a mobile quarterback, but at least this season, it then fell a quarterback. It's been extremely good throwing on the run. It's been Brock Purdy. And it's like he rolls out of the pocket. He's all his momentum is going one way. And then he slings across. And I could think that, yeah, this is kind of something to close in a Phil comp is Brock Purdy. Yeah. Unherald and draft pick becomes a next player. They're the comps are there. But yeah, it was really cool. Yannis had seven assists in 14 minutes, I think. And they were all threes. And he also scored nine points. So that's 30 created points in 14 minutes, which I guess it's a defense that should be a lead quiet in play, but Scotty and CMB and all those guys played. So obviously it's preseason, but yeah, man, you sure got to feel good

12:20about how that works. I also wanted to say in particular, I mean, we'll get into other guys, but Andrew Wiggins kind of got the culmination of like the most assisted shots from Yannis. And a lot of that was coming from the strong side corner, which is crazy, but then I remember Yannis and one of his interviews was talking about like, yeah, people just don't come off of Clay. Like, like, Clay didn't have to do much tonight, but like, players just don't leave him and he's on the weak side. And so I just get these free strong side passes that are like so easy to make. And Clay is just still smothered. And he took one three during that game. And so like that's to have Yannis's gravity is one thing to have the gravity of maybe the second greatest shooter in the NBA. It just takes his team to a whole new level. It really does. And I think Spowe spoke to this after the game,

13:20but it is like playing four on four. And if you've ever played Pica, like the driving lanes are just way more open with less people out there to reach a hand in, to dig or to rotate. So yeah, I mean, I think that'll be huge for the offense in general. And Clay will get his looks for sure. But yeah, I think I had that exact thing in my notes that like Andrew Wiggins is standing on the strong side corner in the defensive like, well, that guy's seven feet tall and about to dunk it. I have to do something. And then it was just, you know, open three after open three. And hopefully Wiggins can keep that going. He had a great year of shooting the three ball last year. And he'll definitely need to keep that going. Cause I think teams, at least for the first portion of the schedule are gonna be like, well, Yannis isn't beating us. Like I wouldn't be surprised if we see games where Yannis is like at 20 points, but pushin' 13, 14 assists. If it guys are really hitting their shots. That'll be interesting to watch. As far as the offense in the system specifically, to my eye, it looked pretty similar to last year.

14:21Very fast, very of tempo, minimal screens. That there were a couple of DHOs and things like that. But I wanted to get your thoughts on how you thought it compared to last year's offense and then how you think Yannis kind of fits into something like that. Yeah, I mean, it's like you just take this supercharger engine and add it to No LaRose's offensive system plus suppose evil genius mind. And you have yourself a very high powered high octane offense that I think is gonna average in the triple digits pretty highly. Like we're talking 120, 130. Pretty nice. If everybody's shooting is there, we'll see how the shooting goes. I'm not as concerned as the general consensus. Just because I've seen a lot of these guys shoot the ball pretty well over the past year. And we added Shooters to the roster as people were begging us to do. But the system does look very similar. One thing that I did see a few highlights of if some of the guys on Twitter, I can never remember their name that they clip a lot of the heat off and stuff. And I saw a few like Bam and Yannis

15:22picking rolls are kind of added into the mix here and there. They didn't seem overly successful, but I don't know that this was the matchup where that would be something that gets you a huge advantage. But it is interesting to see them working on that and seeing what kind of wrinkles they can add to that. I didn't see very much Davian led or point guard led picking rolls. If any at all, I actually kind of fell asleep during part of the second quarter when I was watching, so I don't know if I just missed it. But that was one thing that I think will be explored like who's gonna be picking a role partner with Yannis. And if anybody's gonna fill that role and if that's gonna be a wrinkle to the offense, but possibly something we add on later. But overall it looks healthy. I think Yannis can manage that kind of volume and then there's still plenty of space for Bam to have an uptake in offensive usage. And I'd be curious to see what those usage numbers look like. Actually, I haven't had a chance to look those up, but I think there's so much room to do a lot of different little things. But the overall system that we had last year,

16:25I think it's gonna work really well with this personnel. Yeah, agreed. I mean, like you said, it's like you were running a system. I need to solve for the analogies. But yeah, it was great. It's like if you put Brock Purti into the Lolo Roach system, it's exactly what we got going on. Imagine if you put Brock Purti on the Seahawks. But yeah, it is just a hand in glove fit. And if you wanted to get, you know, conspiratorial about it, you could say like, was Spoke crafting Miss Friyannis, you know, in advance of his arrival? Cause you couldn't make it on his head. You couldn't make it off. It's more, the perfectly designed for Yannis. I think he, it may be Shay, the other best driver in the game. Like they're the guys that you want in this style of offense. Yeah, like we said, I think there were a couple hand-offs. They mostly seem random kind of like when things were stagnating. I remember at least one Davy on Yannis. It was a DHO that went into a pick and roll.

17:25And then they ran double drag one time with Bam and Yannis, both screened. Which I think could be cool to see. Yeah, it could be a devil stating. But to turn a little negative, not that we have to, but it just seems time for it. I was a little concerned about how Davy on looked in this game, I guess, in general. He had a couple actions where I thought he missed Yannis on logs that were there in those pick and rolls they ran. And there were a couple times where Davy on push the ball up. And it probably was the right move to give it to Yannis in that instance. And it did remind me that Davy on was acquired in the Jimmy Butler trade. So we really haven't had a high level offensive forward, like around since he was acquired. You know, he played a Tyler and Norm. But even that, it's just kind of a different symbiosis that would happen with that type of player. So did you have any takeaways from Davy on's game specifically offensively?

18:30I think overall he didn't shoot it very well. And that was kind of the main thing that I saw that wasn't great, but I wasn't super concerned in that regard. I think that there's probably space for him in this offense to try to be the third, like, ball handler behind Yannis and Bam. And I wouldn't be surprised if he had some directives today, or during that game to like see what you can get going and like see what it looks like when the offense is running through you just so that Yannis can have some reps where he's not taking the ball up. I don't think it looked great, but I don't think it'll be a situation where, you know, it's spelled tell some to dial that back. Like I think he'd happily be fine with the role that he's had previously. I think there's also a lot of pressure, especially with some of the early conversations about trying to trade him for another piece. And all of his training and a lot of the national conversation being around us, not really having a guy in that position. And you know, we've seen all the training footage and all the stuff

19:32that I think Davion would have been doing over the summer anyways. We just have an actual national spotlight on us now. And so I think he's under extra scrutiny. And I bet that's probably influencing some of what he's trying to do out there and trying to prove himself. But in my opinion, if we got the same exact Davion from last season, it would be just fine. If we got a better, more involved offensive Davion, that would be great. But hopefully it'll be comfortable setting into the role that makes the most sense. I think it does going to take a little bit of figuring it out along the way. And that's kind of what it looked like to me, yes, or during that game. Yeah, I think so too. I think one thing I would love to see from Davion is more turnovers. And it sounds funny, but he is a cautious passer. And I think especially when he was missing Yannis on those lobs, a lot of them he would stop, you know, he'd get on two feet and then he'd kick out for somebody on the wing to either shoot a three or attack, which is cool. But if you have a lob to Yannis, there's not going to be a more high percentage of look available to you that possession.

20:36I can't remember him throwing a ton of lobs last year, especially in the half court. And with guy, I'd have to go back and look, I could just be misremembering. But with guys like Bam and Ware, you would think that opportunity would present itself more. So we'll see that's definitely something I'll be tracking as the season goes on. Is how many half court like live dribble lobs is Davion throwing? Because I think that's a pass that will be very available with the kind of mismatches that Yannis will have on him. Yeah, I feel like he really did not do that very much with Bam last season. I feel like he did it more when he shared the court with Ware. But you're right, I do think it was pretty limited. And I would be surprised if it's in a high volume coming from him, but it's definitely something that needs to be a part of our game. We need to have some kind of verticality there. One thing I wanted to ask you about is I haven't actually checked the numbers. Do you have any concerns about our rebounding? Yeah, I don't. I think I noticed for offense, it seemed like in this game,

21:37they've really emphasized offensive rebounding. There were multiple times where it seemed like Bam crashed, where Clay crashed. And then historically, when in their respective careers, when Bam or Yannis has been on the court, their teams have been excellent defensive rebounders. And I think that'll continue to be the case, especially because I think one of them will be on the court at all times if I had to get them. Yeah. So it's not something I'm worried about right now. Do you foresee some issues there? I don't know, because I looked at the, I didn't foresee issues. And looking at the numbers, we outrebounded them by like 11 total rebounds. So I don't think statistically there's an issue. I just felt like when I was watching it, there seemed to be, it didn't seem like the Toronto Raptors were trying that hard to get the rebounds. And that might just be a thing that happens. People may just not try. But it also didn't seem like we were fully organized and how we were getting the boards. And I didn't know if against a team that was trying harder, like if Bam and Yannis, if that's still going to be an emphasis for both of them,

22:40now that they're sharing the court, you know what I mean? Like because they're both there, they're both kind of deferring to each other and who's getting the board. Or because they're also kind of similar in size in that way. Like who's going to be boxing out, who's going for the board? Et cetera, et cetera. And it didn't seem to be a huge issue. But it's something that crossed my mind. Like when we're against another really good rebounding team, like how are we going to stack up? Yeah, no, it's a good point. I feel pretty good about it, especially because I think the backup big man rotation will be pretty decent rebounding-wise either. I mean, I actually don't have a great grasp on how Bobby is. Is it rebounded? But Nick would actually write it in. It might not even been then that I was watching. There were parts where Bobby will get to Bobby. And he'll leave, but that was a concern for sure. Yes, yes indeed. So yeah, I think that's a good synopsis of the offensive. I mean, it looks like it's going to be a similar system. It's a great fit with the honest. And I'm excited to see how the other guys figure out how to work around him.

23:41We saw in that first game, I mean, Wiggins and Clay. One was the absence of their impact, kind of creating an impact. And one was just great shooting. But I think both of them will naturally flow off of him. I think Davion and Bam, it'll probably take a little longer for them to find their exact spot. So that would be a fun thing to watch develop throughout the preseason. But then to switch to the other end of the floor, defensively, I think if this team wants to be great, this is where they will have the biggest impact on their opponents. And with that in mind, I was very curious to see what kind of system they're going to bring out. The heat, you know, how they've done switching with when they had PJ Tucker and had more like sized guys in the front court. They've done more drop when they were trying to play Bam and wear together. So what was going to be the main look for these guys and Spowe and typical Spowe fashion didn't fully show his hand because in the first stint with the starters, they were switching

24:41everything. And I was like, aha, exactly as I thought. And the second stint with the starters, Davion fought over screen and they were in drop. And I was like, okay, so with Davion, they just do a drop. And then it was like, Clay and they also were in drop. And I was like, oh, okay, so. And then as I kept watching, then they did drop from a single second stint with the starters. So clearly, Spowe is kind of tinkering. Do you have a preference with this group on how they play defensively? No, I think we have such a great group of defenders on this team. I think it's incredibly special. People keep talking about us being a top four defense in the league. And I think we're going to be the best defense in the league. I don't think there's really any flaws on any position in our court outside of like the worst defender might be an average defender, which is still pretty good. Like we don't like Clay, even like looking at Clay, it's a preseason game against, you know, Kawai is not out there, but Clay is moving his feet, following his guy all the way into the paint,

25:41funneling them into bam and yawning. It's like, you have so much to get through in our that court just to get to our front court. And it's going to be a nightmare for everybody. And so I think that there will be a lot of different systems that we'll use. And I think Spowe, because he doesn't have weaknesses, he needs to cover up. He can tailor the defense to our opponents and to what taken away whatever their strengths are. And I think that will sometimes it will be a drop. Sometimes it will be switching. Sometimes it'll be everybody guarding their yard. And it's super exciting to watch. Like these guys really get after it. There's an intensity there. There's a lot of pride there from one through five. And I think it's just going to be awesome to experience night in and night out. Yeah, no, I agree. I think switching would be where I think they could hit their highest level. But some of that will be matchup dependent. And yeah, like you said, you know, Yannis made that joke in the preseason press conference where he said, like, I might be the worst defender in the five or in the five they mentioned had pelons instead of

26:44clay. And that honestly might be the case, which is such a great problem to have. There are a couple. I'm watching Yannis's defense really closely. I watched a few bucks games recently from last year. And his defense was pretty rough. And that situation was pretty rough. So I'm not like putting a ton of stock into it. But I thought he had some good moments in this one of just being massive and scaring people at the rim. And then he had a couple of tough moments where he's trying to close out to somebody in the close out. Like I think it was might have been RJ Barrett or maybe it was Colin Murray Boyle's, but Yannis closed out. They blew by him and they got an N1 on BAM. There's another possession where I want to say Yannis, it was semi-transition. Yannis was on Jacobi Walter. Walter went to the corner. Yannis kind of just fell asleep and gave up a corner three. Immediately tapped his chest, put his hand up. So like you can see he's kind of figuring out where he's supposed to be in the system. But he's such an intense competitor and such a just, I mean,

27:46freakishly athletic huge person that I think his defensive impact will be very high. And the awesome thing about the switching system is historically teams would call out BAM, get him switched on. Devon Booker, I always think of doing this. He'd get BAM switched on to him and then he'd go to almost half court and be like, all right, BAM's out of the play. Now, now play against Miami's four worst defenders on the court and score teammates. And they would, now it's like that Twitter thing you see all the time. It's like, oh, you stopped the whatever he's doing. He's been out of bio on the back line. And it is what it feels like. It's like, oh, you got BAM switched on. You swing it to the weak side. There's Yannis at the rim. Like, it's that mean. And Clay, I feel like with his, you know, he's always been a better switch defender to me. Devon is great at getting over screened and drawing legal picks, but he also is a very feisty, you know, strong point card. And then of course, Wiggins, good versatile defender,

28:47and then pedal off the bench. I mean, that that is a dynamic dynamic group defensively. And then we haven't even talked about zone, which I don't even want to like, suppose going to do. I was so nasty. I would, if there was, I don't bet. If there was a way to bet, we're going to have a game where Yannis is at the top of his own this season. I would like put money on it. It's, it's going to be so much fun to watch. Yeah, I think the defense will talk later in predictions about how good we think it'll be, but again, if this team is going to be great, it will be because of their defense. But we've mostly talked about starters on offense and defense so far. I wanted to see what set out to you about the bench for anyone that didn't watch the game. Spowe went with a five-man bench unit, which again, I don't think will be something we see in the regular season, but it did give you an idea of what those guys could look like. And they actually ran Pella at Point Guard, which was interesting. And then they had him out there with Tim Hardaway Jr. Simone Fontechio, Nicolay Yovic, and Bobby Portis. And then we saw some deeper bench guys,

29:51more than the second half. But that first bench group, what were your thoughts about those guys? Had three thoughts. First one, obviously we've talked about this. Pella Larson is awesome. To Simone Fontechio is really tall. Do you see what he's out there? It's like, is that Fontechio? He looks huge. That's crazy. And then third was that I completely forgot we signed Tim Hardaway Jr. And he's going to be so sick. He's going to have an opportunity to be in six-man conversations. I don't know where he... And there's going to be stretches where he probably starts. When things get unhealthy and injuries start happening and things like that, there's going to be opportunities for him in the starting lineup. But in a bench unit, he's going to be able to be really effective, especially sharing the flow of somebody like Pella who is going to be attacking a lot. He'll be able to take advantage of some open shots through that. And it was good to see his shooting. It was looking really good. Four for four, three for three from three. Yeah, and it just blows my mind. We were able to put this roster together after signing

30:55the honest. But those three guys released it out to me and then a couple guys stood out. Not so great ways. But I want to hear who you were most excited about watching first. Yeah, honestly, when I watched the first stretch of the bench unit, obviously Pella and Timmy stood out a lot. And it really made me think like, man, that starting back court is not solidified to me. I think there's a non-zero chance that we're in December and starting point guard and shooting guard are Pella Larson and Tim Hardaway Jr. And it might not go that way. I think they're going to try Davion and Clay to start. But those guys just... They're different jobs, but they do their jobs so well. Pella, I've said since that rookie game against Boston where he had such a good game, his reaction to adversity is attack the basket. Like when he's getting pressured, when he's not sure what to do. A lot of guys panic, they turn it over, whatever it may be. Pella is going to go to the basket. We saw him draw several free throws in this game. And I think that's just such a

31:55talent. I will say, Toronto is a very feisty defensive team. They're picking him up full court. He didn't look super comfortable with that. I think ideally there will be another ball handler, even just someone like Drew Smith out there with him to take some of that pressure off. And then in reality, there will probably be either Janus or Bam on the court as well. But this lineup was cool for Pella because at least in theory, it's Pella plus four pretty good shooters. Nico shooting wasn't great last year, but normally is a good shooter. So that could be cool to see Pella get kind of five out spacing around him for him to operate in an attack. And then yeah, Timmy, I mean, man, you know, Tim Hardaway, Jr. We know who he is. He's a gunner and he will thrive in this system. Much like we saw in Norm Powell, do just so many transition threes, but then also off of the gravity of Janus. I hope we get to see Janus and Timmy play together a lot. I think that tandem could be

32:55really nasty. And then yeah, on the more negative side, Nico, it looked okay. There's nothing that was like, he's back. You know, I was like, all right, there's some good stuff. There's some stuff where I'm like, what was the plan? I was optimistic that it was mostly just missed shots and maybe some poor shots, but it was not as catastrophic as some of his minutes were last time. And I don't think you'll have to be on the floor. We won't be doing these all bench lineups, I think really at all. So I think him sharing the floor with other players that will be taking on most of the usage. We'll put him in some good spots to not have to make so many decisions. But he, yeah, he didn't look amazing, but he didn't look terrible, I will say. I was nervous because there were just times where for five minutes, he would play the worst basketball you've ever seen. And it wasn't that. So that's an improvement. Yeah. No, it's true. And again, he does have interesting stuff.

33:57His fit and kind of how he works with Bam and Yannis will be interesting. I don't think you could play all three of them together. I mean, maybe you could. But then when you get into him playing with just one of them, you know, with Bam, we've seen it, you know, I think last year the starting lineup of the beginning of the year was Nico and Bam. And it never is quite worked how we wanted it to. And then with Yannis, then there's even less like traditional center stuff happening. And then of course, you have that added thing of, well, Bobby is kind of going to be the other like backup big. And he, at least from a shooting standpoint, brings, you know, what you want pellets to bring offensively and maybe in a way that he understands his role more than pellet, or sorry, what the Nico does. So again, Nico, I mean, he's on the team. He's under contract for another decade. So we'll see how it goes. I did think like, Spowe usually only plays like nine guys.

34:59We saw 10 in that first half. I feel like Simone might be on the edge of the play time bubble. But again, he at least is less duplicative than Nico is like with Bobby. And then of course, there's this juice myth of it all, which we know the Spowe is going to find him some minutes too. So I'm going to find him. And for sure, what was your first impression of Bobby Portis? This is our first time seeing him in a heat jersey too. The first play that I was really paying attention to Bobby, he, I think, has a turnover and then gives up an easy transition basket on the other end. And so it didn't start off great. He ended up making a shot. And I was like, okay, that's nice. And that's good. Him and Nico sharing the floor together in particular is just a lot of chaos. Like I can see a vision where when they're both playing their best basketball, that could be very awesome, especially if they're very engaged, very aggressive, you know, playing those mind games, really being culture enforcers. Like that's going to be awesome. But when they both look bad,

36:01it's going to look really uncomfortable. And that is what I'm not looking forward to. It is a preseason game. He's probably had the most change out of anybody. You know, Nico still just had his same job trying to get better. But Bobby, it's a big transition. It is probably a different role and different expectations. And I do think he's built for it. And if he can just focus some of that tenacity and energy into being just like bullet proof on defense, that would be incredible. And then on offense, if he could just minimize the mistakes, that would be awesome. Wasn't an incredible showing in his first game. But I still am pretty positive and optimistic that he'll turn good. Yeah. It won't be to this degree. But I do think what we got, like the good stuff we got from late stage Kevin Love could be an interesting avenue for Bobby to pursue. Like you're not stopping anybody. We probably have to play zone when you're on the court. But you're shooting at the five is a real threat to these teams. And it opens up real space for the drivers, especially Bambiana. So I hope that's how Bobby is able

37:06to still be a positive impact on the court. And you know, rebounding his post ups on mismatches. Like he'll be able to find value. But yeah, I would say backup front court is maybe the most liquid kind of position in the rotation, where it's like I could see Nick Richards just be like supposed just like, Hey man, I just want to size and defense and rebounding. Like I don't care about anything else. It could be Nico could be Bobby. It's not going to be Vlad Golden. But it was literally just thinking I was like, you know, who hasn't improved at all? Man, that kid does not have it unfortunately. Unfortunately, who does have it? Our freaking tight end. Yeah, all right. Let's get into the deep bitch. Let's get into the real sick of a territory. So yeah, Ian Sheffield. I hate to say it. The kid's player. Ball player. It might be in football. I'm not saying he's going to be a starter. Kid knows how to play. He knows he's making good passes. He looks calm out there. It's his

38:11first NBA game. He's playing in like a this huge stadium in Quebec. He's taking three inch from 30 feet out, just taking cash. Can you just try out? I just I know it's that it's every cliche. But it's like the kid knows how to ball. Like they're just some people are on the court because they're super athletic or super talented and you're kind of teaching them the fundamental stuff. This kid has none of that. It's all fundamentals. And it's it's because that kind of like development project of the heat will gravitate towards like someone who just already knows what it takes to make a winning play in every given scenario. But needs to be polished up to be able to play at the NBA level. They're like, we can teach you how to move your feet and like how to be athletic enough and get you in the shape that you need to be into play this level. But mentally if you have that that mentality where you can just go out there and kill then they're going to pick you up fast no matter if you could assign with like the Niners and play with Brock party. Great comp by the way. This would probably be

39:13the best place to put a Brock party. By being too late. I already used it. Maybe next time. But yeah, Ian look good. They played him at the four which I thought was interesting. In some way they played him at the five a lot. I don't think he has the size to do that in the NBA. But I'd like him kind of as a stretch for it. It does seem like he can really shoot it. Other deep bench guys Ryan Conwell the second round pick just look comfortable. Just look like he's getting to his spots. Notice how to get into his shots. He's definitely somebody. I know people have made this comparison. We may even have on the podcast before. But kind of that Josh Richards in rookie year second half of the season. It's like I play 20 minutes tonight and hit three three. So that I could see standing out. Were there any other deep bench guys that you thought kind of shined? I didn't get to notice too much for a trade Donaldson. But I'm excited that he's here. Just someone I want to keep a closer eye on moving forward. Nick Richards did get 10 minutes. Did you have any feelings towards that at all? Yeah. I was watching him pretty closely just because I

40:17was like, so what is this guy do? And he's very active on the boards, which is kind of his calling card. He was jumpier and it's the preseason. He was jumpier going for blocks than I would have expected. Kind of in like a like a young sinner making mistakes. Kind of things. So that I'll be watching because I'm like, I don't really know. You're not out there to block shots. I just need you to get these rebounds. And let's go the other way. So I'll be watching that. But yeah, I mean, seems you know, good energy big. I don't think he'll change everybody's life. But he I like having him on the roster because that the Bobby and the Nico thing might not work. We might just have to play like a traditional five. Yeah. And we got to cut Vlad. Man. He's got to go. If he doesn't have his two way by opening night, you'll I'll be at Kasey Center and I'll be making some noise. And you know me, we've been doing this for a while now. I give the most patients to these undrafted second round bigs. Like, right. I'm still waiting for us to sign Orlando Robinson back. Oh, like where's

41:20Omar Yersivan? Like those are guys that I rode to the very end. But Vlad, he just no. I literally he's got you literally had those two names. I was about to say both of those guys showed us more than Vlad has like Chris Silva. And those guys were bad. Yeah. And they still had my Greek. Good grace. But Vlad just doesn't have it. He doesn't know how to play basketball at all. It's crazy. It's just not I think, you know, he definitely could play like in the Euroleague or something. But yeah, it's not it's not clicking. But hey, Vlad Vlad stands clip it, you know, bulletin board material. Maybe maybe the way. Yes, right. The free to the pod. Come on the show of Vlad Defender, though. But yeah, so fans, that was our preseason game. We have another one Thursday against New Orleans. I will be locked in. I'm excited to see how this continues to look. And I hope we get a little bit of the starters each game, just to kind of see how they develop. And hopefully, of course, everyone stays healthy. There's a bunch of soft tissue injuries going

42:20all around because guys are ramping up to game speed very quickly and stuff happens. So hopefully we'll be good there. But Lena, with the last little bit of our show, and of course, we already went long because that's what we do. We've been dying to talk about this team. But we'll do predictions and we did this last season. And I do want to recap because it's hilarious mostly. I can't remember if we did this or not. But to recap our categories are our categories are most approved. Sixth man of the year, MVP, Rankin offense, Rankin defense, and then record. I think I did go over this before, but I'll go over briefly. So most improved player, I put Niko, which was bad, but not to be outdone. Lino put Terry Roche here. I stand by my reasoning that he was a much better impact on the team in 2026 and he was in 2025.

43:27Yes, not on the team and thus not being a complete nightmare. That's something. So six man of the year, I said, Clau, where Lino said, Dave, both of those are funny because both of those guys started a lot. MVP, I said hero, Lino said where? I mean, I don't know if there was an MVP. I guess BAM had 83. So I mean, BAM has to be. Yeah, if you rank in offense, I said 18th, Lino said 16th. I believe they actually ended up 12th. Rankin defense, I said 12th, Lino said 14th. And I think they ended up around 14th. Actually, I think they're on 11th. But anyway, we weren't too far off. And then record, we both guessed 43 and 39. And that was exactly right. So we have some hits and misses in there. We'll try trying to do better this season. But Lino, I will swing it to you first. Who do you nominate for most improved this season? I'm going to have to steal this one from you. I feel like this would have been your pick. But Pellowarshan has to be the safest bet here that he's going to take a

44:31huge leap here. And obviously, maybe not even beat that much better than he was last year. I think you'll just have more opportunity and be more notice because we're going to be on national TV a lot. Yes. Yeah, I could have put Pellow for a couple of these categories. But I had Pellow for this as well. I guess if you had to, just because that does so obviously, if you had to pick a second guy for this category, who do you expect to leap from maybe? We don't have a lot of young guys on the team anymore. That was a problem. I was trying to think like MIP from there's just so few people who are also here from last season. Like if we're talking about guys who came over, there's really not too many guys who are going to have a big leap. So I think it really just leaves like Davion. Davion. Some people are expecting a leap from Davion. I think it's funny. We need it. So yeah, it's funny. I've seen a couple people. I think this is completely out of pocket. But they've been maybe Davion could be like this team's true holiday. And what's crazy to me is, and I'm

45:35just going to go ahead and put this on the record. When I was watching that preseason game, I was like, I think Pellow might be the true holiday. I was like, this dude is big, is strong and can defend. And we'll see about the shot. You know, that Drew is an amazing player. I don't think anyone's going to be as good as Drew out of those guys. But if there was somebody that has that similar kind of physicality on defense hand offense, I can kind of see you at Pellow. But we won't get side track there. Six minutes of the year, this one is obviously tough because it's like we're not totally sure who's coming off the bench. But I just want the chalk answer. I went to him hard away, Jr. Here's third and sixth minute of the year last year. I think he'll probably play a lot with the honest. And because of that, get a lot of open threes. Who did you have for this one? I'm going to go with Clay Thompson here. Okay. I think you'll start off as a starter. I think he might not stay there. And I think that he will get a ton of shots and look much

46:37better than he has before. Nice. Okay. I like that. So we're basically pincelling in the backup shooting guard spot. Whoever that ends up being will be covered. MVP, I wanted to see if you came up with someone other than Yannis. Yes. Ian Sheffield is looking really good at presenting. Other than the honest, I mean, and you can be honest. Yeah. I'm trying to re-contextualize what MVP, like most valuable player, means for this team. And it's still just, you know, I think that that's the choice. You can get creative. You could say, bam, of course, but Yannis is going to make a break this season for us. Yeah. I think that's a perfect way to put it. Essentially, if Yannis is not the MVP, things have gone terribly wrong. I think the only like kind of different answer I could give would be more of like an abstract, like maybe, Spowe. Because he's able to like marry the perfect

47:38offensive and defensive system for this roster. But yeah, I think Yannis is the way to go there. For offense, this one I struggled with a lot because they were, I think, 12th, yeah, they're 12th last year. It's higher than they've been in a long time. But there was the newness of the Noah LaRose. There was the pace. Now, and this is offensive ratings, be clear. So it accounts for the number of possessions. Obviously, they added Yannis. So it's like, okay, well, you were 12th, you had a top five player, like you're going to jump way up. But also, and we'll get to this for the record as well. There will be no tanking teams this year. So just the worst team in the NBA is a lot better than it has been in a long time. So I think that kind of depresses what might have been a bigger jump in some of these categories. But I went with a solid 10th. I think they'll be a top 10 offense. I think it'll be 10th because I can't really picture the offense being great when Yannis isn't on the court. And I think they'll be judicious with his minutes. I think he'll

48:42be probably at 30, 31 minutes a game. So that leaves some time where BAM and the others will have to kind of patchwork some stuff together. So I went with 10th. What are you thinking for offense? I'm going to go eighth. I feel pretty optimistic that we're going to have, I mean, we have shooting and we have Yannis. And that can just generate. And we're going to be playing pretty fast. I think this is going to generate a ton of points. Even when Yannis isn't, I mean, we generated, we generated a lot of points, especially in our best last season without Yannis. We had Tyler Hero and Norm Powell out there. And so I think that this team is better than that team. And I think it's going to be more effective and efficient. And we have the ceiling or the floor and the ceiling both have increased dramatically with the new personnel. Yeah. And there's always a trade that could happen. Maybe maybe those carrier ring rumors end up being true. And then we can see a video on what that is. Rating. You don't want that, buddy. There's only one guy going through that door.

49:44No, we're not going to talk about it. They'll take me. It'll be fun. Lino is looting too. He thinks we'd have to trade Pella, which of course is impossible, because you can't trade Pella because if you trade Pella, you trade me. The trade comp clause is a great exception. Micah said no. So for defensive rating, which again, like we alluded to, I think this will be the side of the court that determines the ceiling of this team. I didn't know how crazy to go. I want to let you go first, because it sounded like you kind of revealed yours earlier. What do you think of that? Yeah, I mess up the show sheet. Sorry, guys. Yeah, I think this is going to be the best defense in the league. I think there's, I don't know who's going to have a better defense in us. There's great defenses out there. There's slower teams that are going to make the defensive and offensive ratings slow down to a crawl just from possessions. But overall, we have the best defender in the world. In my opinion, in the Bay of Montabayo, we have a genetic freak in Yannis. We have

50:49David Young, Mitchell, who I think is one of the premier perimeter defenders out there and disruptors when it comes to defense. And then we've got a bunch of effort guys who have the right size and the right athleticism. And even in an older clay Thompson, like he's still solid. Like he's not a traffic cone. And even if you got around him like a traffic cone, you're running into four other great defenders. Andrew Wiggins is always touted as like a good solid defender, but I think he's really, really good at his job. Like he rarely ever makes a mistake on defense. And he's got the wingspan and the size to really disrupt things. And yeah, with that, plus Spowe leading the way and his creativity on the defensive into things. There's something we'd have to go wrong for us to not be one of, if not the best, then maybe the second or third best offense or defense. And so I would put all my chips in and say these guys are going to be the best. I love that. And it makes me wish I win higher. Like I got me motivated. But yeah, I think

51:50I think the Spurs will be up there. I think the Thunder will be up there. Detroit, I think was like second and defense last year. But I think Miami will be right in that mix. My heart wanted to say top five, but the minutes with BAM off the court, I'm a little concerned about like if the front court's going to be Janis and Bobby, like for the backup units, I'm not sure how that will hold up. So for that reason, I went sixth. So a little more conservative, but around the same. All right, so that brings us to record the only thing we got right last year, basically. So it's a lot of pressure here. For anyone that is curious, I saw Kurt Goldsbury put out the overunders for all the teams right now. Miami is at 46 and a half wins. So Lino, how many wins? Now you have them eight that offense and first in defense. So how many wins are you projecting for this team? 55. Wow.

52:56I love it. They're going to be the best. We're going to be top three seed in the east. We are going to make the conference finals. We are going to be everything that nobody wants to admit us, admit to us that we will be because they know that Janis is going to destroy the east with his new running mate and all the shooters we put around him, all the critiques that they had of us once we got him, we fix. We have shooters everywhere. We have pillow-wise and he can dribble a basketball. I'm good. We're going to be great. We're going to win every game. They're going to want to win every game. This team is tired of being garbage. They want to win, spoil wants to win, and supposed to never had a team with this kind of talent not be that successful. He's skated by and got all the juice out of squeeze of some very mediocre teams, even with Jimmy. We had Jimmy and Bam and then a bunch of people who can't shoot or people who couldn't stay healthy, even Tyler to his extent when he was in All Star Forest. He didn't have much hope.

54:03This is a team that's fully loaded and they have no excuse besides that some of these other teams are also talented, but who cares? Those guys, you know, that's what I'm hoping for. That's what I see. Big jump in wins. Definitely taking the over. Let me ask you this. So for the heat to win 55 games, Yannis has to play X number of games. What would you put that number at? 45. 45. He plays half the games and we could still win 55. We're never losing a game with Yannis. Just kidding. I think he probably had to play whatever the minimum would be for him to win the MVP. What is that? 65. 65. So I would probably put it to ensure 55 wins. I probably put it at like 70 games. Yeah. Yeah. I think so. If Yannis plays 70 games, I think 55 is on the table. I was

55:05bacon in like 60 games. That's what I'm hoping for. That's probably more reasonable. And yeah, in my prediction, a lot of things would have to go right, but I think it's there for the taking. Yeah. You know, the cards fall away. Yeah. Well, I'm going to look like a very negative Nelly. I went with 48 wins. Still the over and in the line, it's only gets us five more wins from last season. I know how that sounds, but it's really think he's brought pretty. This is crazy. It's the it's the change in the league as a whole is what's changing it from. Oh my gosh. They're scared of the wizards. There's no more tanking teams. So there are no more easy wins. The east is so much harder this season. Even if you just look at Miami's own division, like Atlanta, that's four tough games. Washington, they're not great, but they'll be a lot better. They will we won't be putting 83 on Washington again this season. Then you have Orlando. I mean,

56:08Charlotte, Loslamella, those will be good. But I think the league overall will be stronger. So like, I actually when I was going through this, I would say 52 to 53 wins in last year's east. And I think accounting for the east being stronger in the league overall, disincentivizing tanking, I'm going to 48 wins, which I know does sound silly, considering how many the team won last year. Well, we're going to both look silly when this team wins 72 games. That will see that that goes right into my other prediction, which is my other prediction. I'm not like saying it will happen, but I'm saying there's a decent chance we finally get the Spowe coach of the year trophy that he is so deserving of as a never-gadden. Obviously, a ton of credit will go to Janus if things are super successful. But I think there will be a lot of talk about Janus in this system. There'll be a lot of talk about how well the defense is working. So my other prediction will be Spowe. Maybe I'll say we'll be top three in coach of the year.

57:11That's a good prediction, because even though we have Janus, it's not like teams haven't been bad defensively or as a team, just because they have Janus. There've been plenty of coaches who can't coach Janus. There's people that were saying this roster is good as the bucks from last year. So if that's the case, and we win 50 games, Spowe better get coach of the year. I've got BAM out of bio defensive player of the year this year. Yes, love it. Love it. I think we're going to have the national attention that we need this season for him to be in front of people playing next to Janus. I think people are going to see that this guy is the best defender in the league. And I'm very excited to see that come to fruition. I think it's a great call. And similar to my Spowe thing, it's like just having the elite player will get the recognition to the team in general. But again, if like you're saying, if the heat do end up being the number one defense, Janus will get a lot of credit for that, but surely BAM will

58:13get the most credit. So man, that would be amazing. So it's been a great season full time. I definitely have more optimism about this season than I've had in a long, long time. That's the point. There's no point in being like I understand people want to weather their expectations. They want to not be disappointed. But this is what you complain the last four years for us to have a guy that's going to raise the possibilities. So why not hope for the best possibilities? Sure, none of these things could come true. But there's the chance that they can come true because we have these guys in the building. And if we're going to we're only going to have this for two, maybe three years, like it's not a big window that we have right now. So if you're going to hope for anything, you need to hope for it right now because it only gets harder next season in the season after that. And then we're in desolation for the rest of the next like five years. So this is the time to be as optimistic as you possibly can be. Dream, wish, pray for one of the

59:15best seasons in Miami Heat history because it's what we pay for him. That's right. Amen. Can't say better than that. Heat fans, thank you for tuning in with us. The season is almost here. By the time you hear from us next, we might have already played opening night. We have the Minnesota Timberwolves. If you aren't aware, I'm very curious about how that's going to go. The other bit of news we probably should have covered is the heat or doing a Miami vice Grand Theft Auto 6 collaboration. And they're going to wear Grand Theft Auto jerseys. Yannis is on the team. There's so many exciting things. We're so excited. We hope you guys will be with us for the entirety of this season. We will cover all of it and probably hopefully have big smiles on our faces the whole time. And it's going to be a lot of fun. So for myself, Micah, my good, co-host and friend Lino, thank you for tuning in. If you have comments, thoughts, please like and subscribe on YouTube. Follow us on Spotify, Apple, all those different things. If you need socials at Lino, the reader is Lino on everything and he will post all our

1:00:18different things and you can find us through there. So thank you all for tuning in and we'll talk to you next time.