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The recent surplus of healthy bodies (ironic, right?) has put Miami Heat head coach Erik Spoelstra in a tough conundrum, forced to shuffle bodies in and out of the lineup, tinkering with his rotations, roles, and minutes as he tries to navigate his team to playoff contention.
Spoelstra admitted that he is unsure if he's making the right decisions with his team going 5-5 in his last 10 games.
“The rotation is complex,” he said, according to Ira Winderman of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel. “I'm the first to admit I don't know if I am making the right decisions. But there has to be a decision at some point. And, so, somebody's going to have to sit.”
The Heat, for one, have a logjam at the guard position, with many players playing out of position in order to garner minutes on the floor.
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Dwyane Wade, a perennial staple starting at shooting guard for 13 of his 16 years with the team, and the one player for which the team patiently waited this past offseason — is part of that same playing time conundrum.
“We talked about it when we sat down in my house and we talked about me coming back,” Wade said of his September conversation with Spoelstra before deciding on a return for his 16th and last NBA season. “I knew that with the roster, I was going to be another person that was going to be added to that mix. I was going to take some minutes from guys, as well.”
Miami has a whopping six shooting guards in the roster in Josh Richardson, Rodney McGruder, Dion Waiters, Tyler Johnson, Wayne Ellington and Wade, some who have been forced to play at small forward or back up Justise Winslow (a forward transformed to point guard) in quarterbacking duties.
While Spoelstra managed to make due when the Heat was plagued with injuries, having this surplus of bodies, all looking for playing time, has proved more difficult than he could have envisioned coming into this 2018-19 season.
