Heat without four rotation players against Bulls. And Miami promoting Adebayo for award

The Heat will be without four rotation players for Monday night’s game against the visiting Chicago Bulls.

Having already ruled out Andre Iguodala and Victor Oladipo on Sunday, the Heat on Monday evening announced that Tyler Herro and Kendrick Nunn also would not play.

Herro will miss a second consecutive game with right foot soreness; this will be the 14th game he has missed this season.

Nunn, listed on the injury report with right elbow soreness, told trainers that his elbow is feeling better. But he was ruled out because of a neck spasm.

“It just stiffened the last two days,” Erik Spoelstra said.

Iguodala is out with left hip soreness, and Oladipo remains out indefinitely with right knee soreness.

That leaves Goran Dragic, Duncan Robinson, Gabe Vincent and Max Strus as the team’s available guards, with Jimmy Butler and Trevor Ariza able to play both forward positions and shooting guard.

The Bulls remain without All-Star guard Zach LaVine because of the NBA’s health and safety protocols and wing Troy Brown Jr. because of a left ankle sprain.

ADEBAYO CAMPAIGN

The Miami Heat obviously values salary cap space. But that hasn’t stopped the team from promoting center Bam Adebayo for the NBA’s Defensive Player of the Year award.

The Heat began a social media campaign last week for Adebayo to be considered for the honor with the hashtag, #BAMDPOY.

How does that relate to Miami’s cap space?

The five-year, $163 million contract extension Adebayo signed this past offseason rises to about $179 million if he’s named the Defensive Player of the Year this season. The contract jumps to about $186 million if he’s voted onto the All-NBA First Team and about $195 million if he’s named the league’s MVP this season.

“I think Bam is one of the most unique defenders in the league,” coach Erik Spoelstra said in advance of the Heat’s matchup against the Chicago Bulls on Monday night to close the teams’ back-to-back two-game “series” at AmericanAirlines Arena. “He can legit guard one through five and that’s not just coach speak, that’s not fan speak, media speak. That’s legit. He can anchor a very reliable defense and he can take on different challenges and he has the IQ to be able to execute multiple schemes where it’s not just the switching scheme that people think that he’s involved with. He’s able to handle more sophisticated things than just that.

“I think he should be considered for [the Defensive Player of the Year award]. But we don’t have a major campaign for that. I think the main point about all these awards, if you win, I think a lot of that stuff gets taken care of. So we gotta handle that first box, we gotta win.”

Adebayo, 23, is expected to receive consideration for the honor as the centerpiece of a Heat defense that entered Monday with the league’s seventh-best defensive rating. On NBA.com’s latest “Defensive Player Ladder” released last week, Adebayo ranked third behind only No. 1 Rudy Gobert of the Utah Jazz and No. 2 Ben Simmons of the Philadelphia 76ers.

Last season, Adebayo earned a spot on the NBA’s All-Defensive Second Team and received two first-place votes, one second-place vote and four third-place votes for the Defensive Player of the Year award.

“I think Bam is the kind of guy that is willing to put his game out there and let it speak for itself,” Spoelstra said. “If you’re going to be considered the top defender in the league, you have to do special things and your team better have one of the top defenses in the league. Early on in the season, we did not. And for three months now, we’ve been building a much more consistent identity to do that.”

Adebayo is one of 12 NBA players averaging at least one steal and one block this season. He’s known on the defensive end for his unique versatility and ability to effectively switch onto every position on the court at 6-9 and 255 pounds.

As part of the statistical evidence the Heat recently cited in its Defensive Player of the Year push for the fourth-year big man, the team pointed out that Adebayo leads the NBA in pick-and-roll switches this season. Adebayo has also limited opponents to just 0.92 points per possession on those switches.

Players entered Monday shooting 43 percent this season with Adebayo defending them, which is 5.1 percent worse than their overall shooting percentage, according to NBA Advanced Stats. The only starting centers who have limited players to a lower shooting percentage this season are Ivica Zubac of the Los Angeles Clippers and Gobert.

“I know that he loves and he takes the challenge of being able to guard whoever in this league and he’s actually really good at it,” wing Jimmy Butler, the Heat’s other elite defender, said of Adebayo. “I’m sure somewhere the statistics say that he’s really good at it. But around here, we know that he’s really good at it and it’s not always he’s getting a stop or a block or something like that. It’s tough to have to be in a spot and help and then close somebody out and then be able to guard them. I think that’s what people really overlook in how he’s everywhere for us on the defensive end of the floor and he never complains.”

The lone Heat player in franchise history who has been named the Defensive Player of the Year is Alonzo Mourning, who earned the award twice in the 1998-99 and 1999-00 seasons. Sportswriters and broadcasters vote on the honor.