Miami Heat: Lifers Ep 3: Lane Mitnick

0:00And stand up and make some noise for five on the floor on the five. We then support Stetler. Uh-oh. Yeah. Yeah. It's mercy. Knees about mercy again. Heat nation. Need a coach. Your A, I need your call. Time out. He ready. He's set the 4, 10. Chapel blanket. Open for the shot. Your grab. Set the pitch. Still five on the floor. Still right for my dog. Soon better on the court. So survive in the wall. Keep your eye on the ball. OK, burn friendly. Keep the spike off the wall without turning the cheek. From night to day, no sleep attached. So on now tomorrow night, the others, keep an eye on us. Never catch us all night for Miami.

1:01Keep our in the heat with five music sports from the courts to the shoots. Action. Day with count. Heat nation. Still proud. Welcome to Five on the floor. A daily insider show on the Miami Heat and the NBA, featuring even Skull Knight, Greg Sylvander, Alex Toledo, Brady Hawk, and others from the five reason sports network. Also, make sure to subscribe to Off the Floor for the most heat anywhere. Welcome back to another episode of Five on the floor. I'm your host, Greg Sylvander. Today's floor plan. We're doing another episode in the series we're calling lifers. Joining me today is, someone is funny. We joke pre-show. I have known this individual for a couple of decades,

2:02maybe almost three decades now, feels like. But yeah, we had never spoke to each other. And that is the fun way that I guess the Miami Heat have connected people in ways that it's cool to see it over the course of a long period of time. With me is Lane Mitnik. He has been a OG member of Heat Twitter. But also, before Twitter was ever in existence, we both frequented places like Real GM. And so we were on the ground level of the Miami Heat colliding with social media, lifelong Heat Fan. Thank you for joining us. We are going to get into your origin story. I'd love to hear more about your thoughts on this new team that they have. So lots of fun stuff. Welcome to the show. Thank you, Greg. Nice to finally meet you. But yeah, we were talking 25 years probably that we've gone back and forth to know each other.

3:03So thank you for having me. Pleasure to be here. My Heat Origin story, I moved to South Florida from New York the same year that he came into existence. So good tie. Moot here, end of 1987, the Heat started in 88. I was not a basketball fan growing up before that. But I was new to the area, the heat were new, and I started watching them. And then they were terrible, right? Very terrible. Had Rod Rossin was the coach, he had his perm, his curly hair. They won, I don't even know how many games they won their first year, maybe 10, something like that. My first real memory of the Heat was they had this player on the expansion team named John Sunvold, which I don't even know if you remember him. Oh, yeah, shooter number 20. Wow, OK. So he was like a Kirkland brand Steve Kerr, right? He was like an athletic white guy shooter.

4:04This is great. This is great. Great point shot. I think he might have led the league and NBA enough in three point shooting that year. But this is like when you led the league and you took like three three pointers a game. It wasn't like today. So I remember watching a game, and he did like a three-quarter key at the end of a shot clock. And I remember thinking myself, that's going to go in. And it went in. And for some reason, that stuck with me. And I don't know what ever happened to John Sunvold after that. But that was my first real Heat memory. So that was the first season. And going forward, I've been with them every step of the way. They've been with me every step of the way, actually. Through good times, bad times. You know, just a constant. And, you know, I know people come and go or have been flow into Heat, but I can never be too ever down on them because they've given me so much joy and pride in my lifetime that I'm like, right or not. Like, I'm never going to, I'll never not be a fan. Or I'll never be so completely jaded that I can't watch them. I appreciate you saying that.

5:05Because I think it's easy as we age to get quite cynical about lots of things. And I think it's probably pretty natural for people to go through that. And so I agree with you that the Heat is like an outlet to kind of drop all that kind of stuff and enjoy basketball. You know, just as we were talking like social media has changed the way that sports is covered, sports is talked about how the athletes interact with the fans. There's just so much to it. And we both were, and you know, we're dating ourselves, but that's okay. That's kind of what this is for. We both were on the ground level watching that go for message boards to social media. And then the podcast era, like that wasn't a thing when we all kind of converged upon places like Twitter and real GM and places like that. So it's a fun thing to think about how you go through your life

6:09following a franchise, the wins, the highs, the lows, the losses. So now we got a new team. And I'm interested to hear your perspective on the fact, like the fact that they basically finally got the guy, right? There was several years, I'm trying to think of three or four years consecutively where they didn't get the superstar player via trade. They finally land, Yannis. They've transformed the team around him. How are you feeling heading into this season in particular? I am as excited and like energized by this as I can remember being probably since the big three. Like Jimmy was great, okay, but we didn't have expectations of Jimmy. We knew he was an air, but we didn't say he's gonna put us over the top, we're a championship contending team now. We thought we'd be better than we were, but Jimmy wasn't a earth-shattering superstar like Yannis is,

7:15right? Yannis is a gravity force on through himself. He's a planet onto himself. So this is monumental and I am so excited that they were able to achieve this. I was so excited that this is what they do best, right? They get a superstar, build around him, and fill in the holes after the fact, but let's get the building block first. So it was like a Wanzo and we gave up, when rights, I know you were, you know, I was going to fill your guys. Famously cried myself to sleep on that night, but it was the right move, you're right. You're right, you're right. So, you know, and it didn't work out, we didn't get a title with the Zoteam, but that's really because Michael Jordan was in the way, you know, the Dix were in the way, but looking back, those were great times, right? Even if we didn't get over the hump, those were like great rivalries, great times. In the mix. In the mix. And then the big three and, you know, we had a shack in between there. So there was the shack era. Riley got a shack and became legit again,

8:16and won a title again. Probably should have gotten to if Wade didn't get hurt to be your prior, old five. And then now we got the big three and that would happen there and now, John, this is so excited because we're still being discounted, which is still crazy. I mean, it's just crazy, but I can't wait to see what happens and I just know what's going to be, I just really think this is a title winning team. Maybe this is the end of the year. I think they're going to get there too. I think they got the right pieces in place and Janice was just always a natural fit for them. I know that they pursued other guys along the way, but Janice was always, I mean, we literally printed shirts that said, Janice BAM 2021, like they were running for office. Right. And now it's 2026 and finally he's here. So I too share that anticipation level, like it's, I have to actually try to manage my expectations as the season starts. It's a new team, people that haven't played together. And I'm already thinking champion, shit.

9:17So I get this year, but there's no reason they can't, right? I mean, it's true. There's so much clarity, right? It makes the mix one and there's no reason they won. They're, they're a good team. They're not, they're gutted it out. Right. So, you know, all you need is like, and what I like about this team is the personalities in the attitude, this is like a Miami Heat team, right? They're professionals. They're here to win. They're here to play. There's no drama. Like you hear it in, in the Honest Press Conference of Bobby Portis's press conference in play, commsons press conference. They're here to for to win, you know? And like even the guys who are pre-existing, Andrew Wiggins and Bam and, you know, they're, yeah, they're here to win and just continue like, they know the Heater of Professional Organization. This is why they're here. They're not for the nonsense and they're not here for individual staff. You could, they really haven't, you know, talked like that anyway. So that's kind of what, what, this is like a He team.

10:18This is like a classic He team. I think they're gonna be built around defense and Yannis and then go from there. It's gonna be fun. Opening night is against the Minnesota Timberwolves in Miami and you can actually right now play Future MBA season plays on prize picks. You gotta use the code HMA. That is going to get you $150 in free lineups. All you gotta do is play your first lineup and if you win, so play a $5 lineup, you win, you get $150 in free lineups. HMA is the code that supports us here at five on the floor, prizepicks.com or download the app. And when I mentioned the MBA season plays, interestingly enough, Anthony Edwards and Yannis and Sancta de Cumpo are at 28.1 and 28.3 points per game respectively for the season. I'm going more on both of those guys. I think we got some 30 point averages coming from Ant Man

11:19in Yannis this season. You can play that right now, three times multiplier. It's so much fun. Check it out. HMA is that code that'll get you that $150 in free lineups when you play and win that first $5 HMA, prizepicks.com. Had to sneak that in and pay the bills. So what was, I'm actually going to go in a morbid plate, well, relatively morbid in a basketball sense. What was your lowest moment as a heat fan? The lowest low. Probably the Alain Houston shot. I would think that was pretty low. Alonzo getting sick was pretty low because we had really big expectations that year. I don't know if people remember, but we got Anthony Mason and Brian Brand and Eddie Jones. And that was like, oh, we were so excited. And I remember going to, they had a scrimmage. This was right up to the Olympics too. I feel right. This was like after the two thousand Olympics.

12:19And I've been Boko, right? Yeah, I was in Boko at FAU at a scrimmage and Alonzo was not there. And I remember thinking that's weird. It was like a big event. It was like Riley was there, all the plays were there. They were like, I drove off from North Miami. I mean, I was there. You're there. And I remember thinking, like, driving back and thinking, that was weird that Alonzo wasn't there. And then we find out that he had really bad kidney disease and had a retire or temporarily retire, needed a transplant and all that. So that was pretty low because we really had big expectations. I think that was like, the bulls were behind us. It was really no super deist team. And that was pretty low. I think after that, things got better because we won championships after that. So I can almost take setbacks because at least we had the run we had. So Shaq didn't leave on a good note. People might not remember it because he kind of repaired their relationship. But it was pretty bad. He was insulting Chris Quinn on the way out.

13:20And the, oh man, Ron Colp, the old trainer, he was insulting them because he wanted out. And that was a bad case nearby. When LeBron left, it was disrespectful how he left, whether you read with it or not, he didn't give them the courtesy of telling them that whole story where he had Riley and Ellesburg show up to Vegas. And he didn't speak with them. And they were sitting there like by themselves. But I was OK with all that because hey, we did win with Shaq. We did win with LeBron. And he can't really take those away. I always think back like the COVID year, the bubble year. And that was a tough time for all of us. But they like, they like saved me. They saved us. They were like our only joy. There was. We were all sitting at home like isolated and nothing going on. And they were winning. And they were keeping it going for us. And that I remember sitting in my living room and bam's block on. So amazing.

14:20I don't take them. Freedom. And I remember just like being sold like insulting, like an idiot. We're running around my living room. None of us had anything to cheer about for a while at that point. So when I say like they got me through some tough times, they got me through personal tough times. I remember my, you know, my mom passed away in 04. But I remember like sitting there watching games and getting passed at, you know, and a happier note. I remember in 06, the Ray Allen shot. I was my now wife. My then fiancee, she fell asleep. She was in bed. And I'm watching the game because it was like, you know, the end of the game was probably like 11 o'clock, 11, 30 at night. And I remember like those games. So late. He hit the shot. And I couldn't like cheer or scream. Because my, my wife was my future wife was sleeping in the other room. I remember like, you know, like, like silently cheering for that. So like all those moments, just they add up. So that's why when I said, I'll never quit on them. And I know like we've gone back and forth in chats. And I'm like, oh, if they don't get you on us,

15:21I'm done with them. Oh, for sure. We all get that waste on times. It was tough. I mean, when you wanted like the one extra piece that you thought could get that team over the hump, because you're right, like we didn't expect to have the run we did with Jimmy, where some of those other guys like Shaq and Braun, we were fully, fully expecting to win championships. What would you consider 2011 the loss to Dallas one of your low points? Or was that does that get washed? That was low like I'm moping admissible. But I think it was just as disappointed as I could be. Because there was no reason they shouldn't have won. And that whole, you know, that wasn't like Dallas was like overpowering. They weren't disperse, right? If they lost the first they got out. They got out. Yeah, that would have been okay. They lost the disperse. It's disperse. You know, they lost to OKC who had young hard in and young Westbrook and young. Okay, they're on the, you know, they're on the upswing. But we beat those teams, but to lose to Dallas who had Dirk and

16:23everybody else was old or a nobody that was that was rough. Yeah, and we had talked so much trash along the way as the heat and five, heat and five, you know, they were, they knocked the bulls out and that was like a year where I think most heat fans thought that it could end poorly. Because it was the first year they're together. I mean, we thought they could get to the championship. You wanted it to happen, but they struggled early on. And so I always am interested with tenured heat fans. How they handled not just the big three era, which felt like just a big drunk party for four years in basketball terms. But also the low moments like 2011 to your point about Zo. Like these are things that like you do remember like where you were when you saw the press conference and you're like, oh, no, he's not playing anymore. And Chris Bosch is another guy we didn't even mention that. And that kind of derailed that team. Right. And this is like a whole new group. It's fun that they're that we've been around for, I guess, this many build

17:29cycles. We're dating ourselves. We're going to have a couple other people on that are a little younger so that I get every perspective from him. Okay. And not just all of the old unks like you and I think about how many people the big three created fans from you're so right. Or wait even before that just wait by himself. But then the big three, can you imagine? I can imagine being like a 10 or 12 year old kid at the time and you have these things going on. So, but I will say as as great as the big three error was, it was not fun. It was stressful like agree. I think they were spending Sacramento was so much pressure. Everybody wanted to beat them. They everybody like talking bad about them because they were so expected to win. They won that 27 game winning streak whatever that was. You know, it was stressful. They were then all the pressure when they didn't win in 11 and then you have to win in 12. You just have to because otherwise this was like a bad thought experiment gone wrong. That's so true. You know, so it was the big three error was not and then it ended so abruptly.

18:34You know, Riley talks about it could have been a dynasty, his dynasty, like his what Brian could have resigned and you can have kept building around Robron, Blubron and man, but I'll take it. Right. We'll take it. Definitely all the finals appearances, the championships competing for championships. It all rolls up to and as I'm wearing a Cain's hat as they kick off their season against Stanford tonight. We've really only had the heat in in Miami for some time that you could consistently count on to try to put out a winning product. I know the Cain's are on an upswing right now, but it has been a scenario where if you're a South Florida sports fan, you're getting your heart broken from a lot of different angles and at least the heat have paid some of that back along the way with some championships and unlikely finals runs, stuff like that. I guess as we close up here, projections for next season, you got any any hot takes that we should know about related to you think,

19:40Yannis is going to be MVP, just coach the Spoguecote to the year finally. Don't never get coached to the year. They just expect to like when he when he you know they expect him to win when he has these types of teams and then they you know but every player votes him as the coach of the you know the coach that most want to play for the best coach in the league year in a year. I don't know if I have like a hot take except anything less than 50 wins to me would be disappointing. Anything you know barring injury obviously but I mean I'm really expecting like a magical run. There's no reason not to be and I really expect I mean we're not surprised me if Yannis is MVP. I would you know hopefully he's going to have a lot of eyes on him now. The heater going to have finally a lot of eyes on them now and maybe this helps BAM's case for defense a player of the year. I agree. Multiple all stars and the same from the same team. You know the hot take would be I'm expecting like Easter conference finals or bust or or better.

20:47I just think that's good expectations though I think like that I know a lot of fans would want to championship right up front but I think if you got to the conference finals in year one of this new build that that I people don't want to hear it I know they're going to say that I'm making excuses already and it's only September but that would I guess be a good starting point but I agree with you the parody in the Eastman like there is a way you can create a path and you can get there in the first year. I'm excited to see it happen closing thoughts anything you want to share we appreciate you joining Lane one of the most tenured connected heat fans that does not take a day off when it relates to the heat and all the games and the transactions and the stories all this fun stuff final thoughts as we close here thank you to prize picks use that code HMA. I would just say final thoughts where it's going to be an exciting season I really appreciate heat Twitter I guess I don't know if you call them that anymore I'm not on Twitter anymore but the

21:51network that we have the heat family that we have right it's just to the last since it's a big three hour anyway it's just been a lot of fun a lot of good people and I really enjoy that part of it too because you feel like a part of a community up or down I appreciate you guys and you know bringing bringing the information and it just look forward to a great year it's going to be awesome like just have no reason not to expect that famous last words but here we are. Right yeah we're setting ourselves up here and let's do it yeah that's the ebbs and flows of being a heat fan it usually ends up working out all right if you want to join off the floor you need to check the link in the description of this episode I'm going to flash it up a year on the screen that's our discord server we have over 10 channels you can consolidate everywhere you track the heat on social media you can just do it all in one place off the floor link is in the description 299 a month 399 with the apple up charge but if you subscribe from your desktop you

22:54don't have to worry about that again link is in the description if you ever want to come on an episode of five on the floor maybe a post game show you can rant you can celebrate you're going to want to be on off the floor to do that Lane had the inside track because he's been a heat fan for so long but we need people on discord so that they can join us thank you for your time and this has been another fun episode of lifers who knows who's up next thanks great