The Miami Heat had legitimate reason to believe that Victor Oladipo could become the added lockdown defender and two-way player who could give the team a chance to defend its NBA Eastern Conference championship. That plan did not come to fruition, however. Oladipo suffered an injury not very long after joining the Miami roster. Coach Erik Spoelstra has to make do with the roster he has entering the 2021 NBA Playoffs. Spo had more to say about Oladipo's injury status and the veteran's decision to have surgery now, rather than later, on his right quadriceps tendon.
Erik Spoelstra on Victor Oladipo: He was looking at every single possible avenue to be able to continue the season without surgery but for his career it made the absolute most sense to take care of this now. pic.twitter.com/d6U8Tzt8Za
— Brendan Tobin (@Brendan_Tobin) May 13, 2021
The Heat and a lot of other NBA teams might not want to admit or disclose this in public, but the 2021 season has been one of the most injury-laden battlefield journeys in league history, and it doesn't seem like an idle coincidence or an unforeseen accident, either.
The Heat and the Los Angeles Lakers have suffered a lot this season due to injuries, and they were always likely to be especially vulnerable to an injury plague, given that they had just two months between the end of the 2020 NBA Finals and the start of the 2021 regular season. Adding in preseason camp, Miami and the Lake Show had just one and a half months of downtime between seasons, a recipe for disaster.
The NBA had done a great job over the past several seasons in improving the schedule to reduce instances in which teams played back-to-back sets or four games in five nights, but those advancements were discarded this season in order to cram a 72-game schedule into a narrow window before the 2021 Tokyo Summer Olympics and get the league back into its normal October-through-June scheduling format for the 2022 season. That effort to jam the current season into a short window has led to a lot of back-to-backs, with star players dropping like flies on the Heat and lots of other teams.
Oladipo needs to be 100-percent fit and fresh for a 2022 season in which the Heat — with some adjustments to their bench — could have a rested roster and a strong chance to make a run at the title. Miami is not in position to make a deep run this spring, but that's far less a commentary on the quality of the ballclub than a reflection of how exhausted and depleted this team has been for virtually the whole season.
Oladipo and Spoelstra both know that recovering fully now, and being ready in several months, is the long-term play the Heat need to make.
Follow Us
Subscribe