Podcast: Heat battles COVID — and refs — in Philly. And Harden trade shakes up the East
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The NBA is at a COVID-19 crossroads, and the Miami Heat is caught right in the middle of it.
The league has had to postpone six games in the last week because of the coronavirus and the Heat is suffering as much as almost any team.
Miami already had one game postponed Sunday because of the virus and now the Heat is down to just eight healthy players as it wraps up a road trip through the Northeastern United States.
On a new episode of the Heat Check podcast, David Wilson and Anthony Chiang, the Miami Herald’s Heat beat writer, welcome the Associated Press’ Tim Reynolds back to the show to discuss the NBA’s COVID issues, the league’s response and how it’s all affecting Miami.
It’s probably not fair, but the Heat, which was already struggling, will have to play the Philadelphia 76ers again Thursday without All-Star forwards Jimmy Butler and Bam Adebayo after some shaky officiating cost Miami in a 137-134, overtime loss at the Wells Fargo Center on Tuesday.
The Heat (4-5) isn’t alone in being frustrated with this season, though. The Boston Celtics, Washington Wizards and 76ers are suffering, too, and the Phoenix Suns are a new addition to the list of teams because of contact tracing. It’s starting to feel a lot like the 2020 MLB season, right down to the NBA’s new set of altered protocols and a total resistance to the idea of shutting down the season.
Does the league have any regrets? Chiang argues the season shouldn’t have started until Martin Luther King Jr. Day, and Wilson wonders why the league didn’t give teams a larger player pool to account for inevitable COVID cases or if a bubble to start the season would’ve been smarter. Now, it’s all too late and the league hopes its new protocols will be enough to keep the 2020-21 NBA season on track.
Meanwhile, while we were recording this episode the James Harden trades talks started to heat up again. We offer live reaction to a rumored Harden-for-Ben Simmons swap for Philadelphia, then break down his potential fit with the Brooklyn Nets. About an hour after we finished, the Houston Rockets finalized a deal and shipped the superstar guard to the Nets in a blockbuster trade.
