Miami Heat choose to 'Embrace the Suck' at Disney bubble, with no complaints

Part of success in the NBA is reading the room, even if that room is at Disney World, in a quarantine bubble, amid a pandemic.

So if Rajon Rondo, before breaking his thumb at practice, chooses to go on Instagram to compare his accommodations to a Motel 6, so be it. But staying at the same Coronado Springs resort as Rondo’s Los Angeles Lakers, the Miami Heat simply are rolling with the times, as unique as these times have been, during the coronavirus pandemic.

“I think you just make an adjustment. I think for us it’s just important to try to adjust to the new normal,” forward Andre Iguodala said amid the Heat’s practices in advance of the league’s restart later this month. “It’s funny to say that, because everyone is adjusting to a new normal. You got to empathize, and you got to have an understanding from a worldly perspective in terms of people who don’t have jobs. Unemployment is at an all-time high historically for our country. Last month was pretty good, but with the shutdown in a lot of different states, traveling restrictions, quarantines moving from state to state, you got people worried about that and just trying to get back to work. And the wealthier are getting wealthier. Companies are getting bigger.

“So if you have that grand-scheme perspective in terms of what’s going on with people, you should be able to adjust and have an understanding that everybody is doing the best they can to deal with their environment and circumstances and just trying to make the most of it.”

Through three days of practices leading to Monday’s day away from the court, the Heat have stressed such perspective.

“I’m just going to go ahead and state that there’s going to be ups and downs and there’s going to be times when I miss my wife and dog and I wish I was in my own bed,” center Meyers Leonard said. “But the reality is we’re NBA players. We’re blessed to do what we do.”

For now, the setting has been typical of training camp, with the Heat over their 32 seasons having utilized similar accommodations ahead of seasons, from budget hotels at the franchise’s inception, to military housing during the first camp with LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh as teammates.

Forward Udonis Haslem was at that camp at Hurlburt Field in the Florida Panhandle and has settled into this camp, one that comes in advance of the Heat’s Aug. 1 restart and then the Aug. 17 start of the playoffs, all while taking daily COIVID-19 tests.

“The NBA has done a great job of giving us everything we need,” the Heat captain said. “Got everything as long as we need. The internet has been super hooked up, so we can get on the phone with our families. Everybody got their gaming system. They got lounges. They got all the different stuff.

“So for a guy like myself who doesn’t play video games and doesn’t really have very many friends, what they did in the rooms was critical for me to be mentally and physically prepared for handling what I needed to do.”

Ultimately, it is that mental strain that is the concern, with the teams in the NBA Finals possibly to remain in the quarantine setting through an Oct. 13 Game 7 of the NBA Finals.

“As long as I had my iPad and my phone so I can talk to my family on FaceTime and see my kids, that’s good enough, right now, in this situation,” guard Goran Dragic said. “But, you know, just try to stay mentally focused and not to be down, try to mingle with my players, with my teammates, and, of course, obey all the rules that we can in this quarantine times.”

Leonard arrived to Disney sporting “Embrace the Suck” military-style gear, embracing those inspirational words from retired Navy SEAL David Goggins.

“I’ve heard some of the grumblings. ‘Oh, we’re going to be in the bubble. We can’t leave. We can’t do this, we can’t do that,’ “ Leonard said. “ ‘Embrace the Suck’ is a Navy SEAL thing and a David Goggins thing, which just means: Listen, there’s plenty that we can complain about. But who’s going to be the team that doesn’t do that?

“If you’re the team that does not, you’re going to have a leg up. My room is good. I got my PC set-up. The food is fine. There are no complaints here — and it’s just as simple as that.”

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