Barkley and eight other analysts weigh in on Heat, offer advice. And media notes
Thoughts from eight analysts on the reeling Heat — who have lost five in a row — and the Terry Rozier trade:
▪ TNT’s Charles Barkley suggested it will take time to gauge Rozier’s potential impact:
“It’s a nice trade for them,” he said. “It’s too early [to know how much it will help]. It’s only their second game. They can score with anybody [now].
“This is going to be a great trade for Terry Rozier. You’ve got to give them a couple weeks. He’s got to learn to get rid of the ball. When you play on bad teams, you develop a lot of bad habits. He’s like, ‘I’ve got Jimmy Butler over there. Oh, I’ve got Bam [Adebayo] over there. I got Tyler Herro.’ He didn’t have that luxury [in Charlotte].
“That’s the difference between being an empty calorie guy when you’re on a bad team getting numbers. When you play with better [teammates], ‘You’re like this is so easy.’ It helps you.”
Rozier — who was 25th in the NBA in scoring and 14th in assists before his trade to the Heat — has 16 points, 8 assists and three turnovers in his first two games and 58 minutes with Miami but has shot just 6 for 21 from the field.
“It’s an upgrade,” Barkley said of moving from Kyle Lowry to Rozier. “I give Pat Riley and Erik Spoelstra a lot of credit. They’re like ‘we’re not going to win with the way we are.’ I love teams that are going for it. The Heat is one of the best organizations in the NBA. They’re like, ‘We’re not going to win where we are now.’... When Boston is shooting like that [in Thursday night’s 143-110 blowout], nobody is going to beat them.”
▪ TNT’s Kenny Smith, on Rozier: “I think he’s a better playmaker than scorer. You’ve got to play faster with him.” The Heat is 29th in pace.
▪ TNT’s Reggie Miller: “They’ve always prided themselves on the defensive end and they [were] shredded [by Boston]. It’s almost becoming comical. I’m surprised there is no resistance.
“To me, they’re still small. To me, that always has been the problem with Miami — their size. Bam has had to do a lot covering up defensively. And as great as he is, I think they need more size. Look at Luke Kornet and Al Horford on the floor. Look how small Miami looks.”
But “I like” the Rozier trade. “You add more speed to the backcourt.”
▪ ESPN’s Kendrick Perkins, on Friday: “The Heat’s got to find a way to get it done or we’re going to have to have an uncomfortable conversation about a certain individual.” Perkins stopped his comments there, but he said earlier this season that Miami needs to consider trading Butler.
▪ TNT’s Jamal Crawford: “Terry Rozier brings a whole different swagger, a whole different confidence. People don’t know this about Jimmy Butler: He’s OK being Robin on the court at times. He doesn’t mind passing the ball and saying you take over for stretches. Terry can do that. He can take over stretches, he can take over games. He’s a big shot maker. I think it’s a perfect fit for them.”
▪ Truehoop’s David Thorpe, who has worked with a lot of NBA players on their games: “Jimmy’s just been out to lunch a little bit. He’s got to be All-Star Jimmy. And he hasn’t been. He’s got to be Playoff Jimmy. And he’s not Playoff Jimmy. I can strongly guess that Spo is saying to him privately and publicly ‘We need Playoff Jimmy now.’
“I think that they need more connectors, more passers. Jimmy’s the one that does and he’s not really engaged in that.
“I don’t think [Rozier] is a great addition. I think it’s good. I love Terry Rozier. He’s very hard to guard. I think the team’s a little bit selfish. I don’t like him and Herro together. I think they should trade Tyler Herro now. Terry is very duplicative in a sense…I still think they’ve got more work to do.”
▪ ESPN’s Richard Jefferson, before the ongoing losing streak: “My thing with Miami, since the bubble, is it feels like they’re one player away. Butler is very close to being a 1A. I think he needs to be a 1A [or needs] somebody better than him. If they do that, that’s a team that could win two of the next four championships because they have young talent. They have great pieces around them. They can beat everybody, but can they do it sustained all the way through the NBA Finals? The answer is no.”
▪ ESPN’s Zach Lowe, after the Rozier trade: “Tyler Herro is probably not going to want to hear this…but I want him to be 15 percent more Klay Thompson and 15 percent less I’ve got to dance with the ball and all this stuff. Because you can engineer playmaking without great passing if you have one great shooter who’s willing to just fly around the floor and draw two and play that Duncan Robinson-Bam [Adebayo] two-man game. We saw it with [Max] Strus last year, for instance.
“I would like to see [Herro] with another ball-handler now and the Heat push him to…‘Hey, I know you want to make an All Star team… and you consider yourself a star. Can you lean a little more in that direction to give us some side to side juice and some life on offense?’”
▪ ESPN’s Austin Rivers, before this ongoing losing streak, said this is a better roster than the Heat’s NBA Finals team last year, even before the Rozier trade: “They lost Strus; Josh Richardson is just as good. They lost Gabe Vincent [but] they got a rookie, Jaime Jaquez, who’s better. You still don’t want to see them in the playoffs.”
THIS AND THAT
Despite losing co-lead NBA analyst Doc Rivers to the Milwaukee Bucks, ESPN hasn’t been giving any consideration to rehiring former lead analysts Jeff Van Gundy and Mark Jackson, according to a source.
Van Gundy, Jackson and studio analyst Jalen Rose were among a couple of dozen high-profile ESPN layoffs over the summer.
Even if ESPN wanted to bring back Van Gundy or Jackson, language in buyout agreements generally would make that difficult, if not impossible, at least for a time.
ESPN felt comfortable ditching Van Gundy and Jackson because of Rivers’ availability and decided to pair him with Mike Breen and former No. 2 analyst Doris Burke on the ABC and ESPN lead team.
But Rivers worked only three months at the network before taking the Milwaukee Bucks’ coaching job.
We hear ESPN intends to either 1). Use Mike Breen and Burke as its lead team, which includes the Eastern Conference finals and NBA Finals. Or
2). Add a third voice to the lead team, perhaps JJ Redick or Richard Jefferson, who work on the No. 2 team with Ryan Ruocco.
Breen, Van Gundy and Jackson had rare comedic chemistry and the ability to keep a game telecast entertaining even when the score wasn’t close. It’s unlikely ABC/ESPN can replicate that with its available options, but adding a third voice alongside Breen and Burke would at least enliven the dialogue.
ESPN’s other game analysts are former Golden State Warriors general manager Bob Myers, who has impressed as a TV rookie both on games and in the studio, and 90-year-old former Hall of Fame coach Hubie Brown, who works Saturday’s Heat-Knicks game with Dave Pasch (3 p.m., ABC).
▪ NFL games keep shattering ratings records. More than 50 million watched Chiefs-Bills, making it the most-watched divisional playoff game ever, at least since Nielsen started measuring out of home viewing, as well as in home viewing.
▪ Antenna, a subscription tracking service, reported that 2.8 million people signed up for Peacock in the three days leading up to its Dolphins-Chiefs broadcast, which was the first exclusively streamed playoff game in major U.S. pro sports history.
At $5.99 per month, that would be $16 million in revenue. NBC Universal paid $110 million to purchase the game for Peacock.
▪ For the fourth time, Bally Sports Sun Heat TV voice Eric Reid was named Florida’s Sportscaster of the Year by the National Sports Media Association.
Reid — who has been on Heat broadcasts since the franchise’s inception in 1988 and the play-by-play voice since Year 4 — always strikes the right balance between giving statistics (but not overwhelming viewers with them) and pointing out team shortcomings (without being excessively negative).
And he injects an amusing line or two most nights, from noting that Wednesday’s loss to Memphis was a game “only your mother could love” to playfully instructing fans in Minneapolis to “buy their own chicken sandwiches” when the Heat foiled a Chick-Fil-A promotion that would have given Wolves fans a sandwich if the Heat had missed consecutive fourth quarter free throws in an October game.
