Miami Heat pairings we’re curious to see | Five on the Floor

Miami Heat pairings we’re curious to see | Five on the Floor

right, welcome back to five on the floor. Here’s today’s floor plan. I’m Ethan Skolnick. You can follow me at EtherJ Skull at Fiverr in sports. I got Brady Hawk. You can follow me at Brady Hawk 305. We got a lot of episodes that are up, so catch up on everything. Most of what we put up lately is not really timesensitive. So like best case scenario, worst case scenario for the heat season. Greg and I did those two episodes. Those those are there. Brian Fana and I went through the Terry Rosier situation. Um, Brian has a different perspective on it than some do, so that’s worth listening to. A recent episode I did with Shawn Rochester and Matteo Mayorga, a better exposure becoming more outspoken publicly this season. They had a good debate. So, there’s lots on there. Make sure you check it out. Brady and I today, you can follow him at Brady Hawk 305, me at Ethan Skolnick or excuse me, Ethan J. Skolnick or Five Reason Sports. We’re going to go through the twoman pairings that we’re most interested in watching this season. Now, I threw this on Discord and of course I got some answers like Bam Out of Bio and Ira Winderman. We’re not taking that one. Uh Terry Rosier in the bench. We’re not taking that one either. Um there’s actually other ones related to that we’re not going to use. Uh but we’re not going to do any of that. Of course, Reed and Karate. Yes. I mean, we’ve seen Reed and Karate together. So, uh that one will continue. And of course, Eric Spolster and the media. Others want to see that. Uh I don’t know why you would want to see that. But Brady, uh, we’re gonna go through your fiveman, your five twoman combinations on the court. We are most looking forward to seeing. I have a feeling that one player is going to be prominently featured in here in at least one or two of these just because we haven’t gotten a chance to see it. Uh, but what’s your first? Yeah, I’m going to start somewhere else before we get to that specific player. So, like the easy one we could do here is like Bam and Hero and those type of twoman combos, but I’m kind of staying away from those cuz I mean, we’ve seen that for how many years now? Uh the first one to me that I’m interested in seeing and just because I liked what I saw last year from it is Nicole Yoic and KL Wear. We we’ve talking so often about the starting lineup this season about specifically the back court who’s going to start in the front court. We we think it’s going to be Kel, but there I know you made the case you think it could be uh Yovic in there at the four possibly. But it’s it’s not really an eitheror thing for me. It’s more so finding ways to stagger beyond that where Yoic and Wear are linked together. I want to see those guys play a little bit more often just because I think there’s just a little bit of versatility there offensively that you could get to that you just can’t get to with other lineups that uh number one Yoic is one of the few players in this team that could really find Kell on the roll where they would run stuff off a secondary action and Yoic could fly up a screen and can hit the lob pass over the top. You have the fact of of just two big players that are have the ability to do different things in the offensive side of the court just to kind of give them a different look. Uh, and I could a lot of these pairings that I’m going to talk about I could add a third player to because I feel like the third player kind of makes the difference in a lot of them. I don’t know if you like last year the big lineup that we were talking about a lot was Yoic and where with Hero. I mean Hero was kind of a big there was a big grouping there that where they had really a ton of positive minutes together kind of as a whole. Uh, so I’m just interested in that together is the big question this year is going to see the growth of Yovic and then what Kell kind of turns into in his second year. uh if those two can grow side by side where it’s not, you know, Kell over here and Nico over here and seeing different attributes that that grow and it’s like, okay, well, these two guys when they’re on the floor together make each other better. I think that’s important. That’s kind of an interesting thing to kind of keep track of. And defensively as well, we saw Nico grow on the perimeter. Kell’s still, you know, learning by the rim, kind of containing and doing all the stuff that we talked about in summer league. Uh it’s just one of the few because there’s a couple dynamics that we’re going to bring up where you have to put certain guys around the two guys to make the lineup work, right? Like there’s just a lot of those pairings that you could talk about. I don’t really feel that way with Kell and Nico. Like they feel like two guys where there’s a lot of different options you could put around those two and make a solid lineup. And I just think that that’s kind of a good base to start with. One of the things that Yoic talked about last year when he started playing with wear a lot was that it was easier to play with wear on offense than to play with Bam. Not that he was disparaging Bam, but that with Wear, you kind of knew what Wear was going to do. He was going to dive to the rim. Um, as whereas with Bam, there was more flaring. There was more other actions in there. Do you see anything related to that? Just like simplifying it for Kell when he’s out there with excuse me, for for Yoic, when he’s out there with where? It’s it’s different just because I mean the lob thing over the top as I mention is is a key part of it but like you can if you’re running an action with Yoic and Kell most likely the other teams four and five is going to be in the action. Uh and a lot of times they’re going to they’re going to switch that like that that’s they’re rarely going to send unless it’s like a they’re playing a small lineup or they have good defenders that are versatile like they’re going to switch that action. So like Kell slipping to the basket, Nico knows where to put that ball and it just felt like a lot of those scenarios were kind of just building advantages there. U and a lot of this with this lineup stuff is like we we have to see Nico on the ball. I mean we talked about that this whole offseason and putting him in the right role and stuff, but like I don’t want to see this lineup if it’s going to be whoever else that’s just going to be dribbling the heck out of the ball and it’s Nico in the corner and Kell in the bottom box. Like it’s not going to work. It’s not going to work that way. you want to try to maximize your two young players that are kind of your two key guys in terms of taking that next step. You got to use them on the ball, you have to prioritize them offensively. And it felt like there was just a natural chemistry as you said like Nico just kind of fit right in with Cole in a way just because there was Ko when he comes off a screen like he’s he’s waiting for the ball. I mean he he’s kind of eyes ball handler. He’s like okay this is kind of an that’s just what you should do as a big man in general. And Nico, when he comes off a screen, his first thought isn’t to pull up into a mid-range jumper. His first thought is to make that pass on the roller. So, I just think there was an interesting chemistry there, and I’m just curious to see what they could build off of there. All right, let’s get to number two. Um, are you still staying away from the core new player? No, I’m there’s definitely a couple that I’m thinking of with this group, but I’ll say this because I’m going to go with Powell and Hero. I I think that’s kind of the number one thing that I’m interested in seeing this season. There was an interesting number I was looking at. One of the better net ratings there. I’m going to wait for the other one that was the best net rating with with two man pairing, but one of the better ones actually last season was Hero and Alec Burks who had 120 offensive rating and offensive rating and 109 defensive rating. We talked about on a previous podcast that I mean Duncan and Hero were good together offensively. It was just that they couldn’t really play for long pockets of the game because defensive stuff, but Hero has always been better when he has that extra backcourt mate that is a shooter and a scorer. With that said, you’re kind of adding Powell, who is a better version of both those guys as a as a scorer in general. There’s just a real possibility here to kind of find an offensive rhythm. Uh, and I know we did a whole podcast on this stuff with with Powell and hero, so I won’t go too deep into it, but it just seems like there’s an ability here where the I just think back to Burks specifically because Powell is not Burks, but I think about the easy opportunities he found in the corner where like every game it just felt like Burks was finding open pockets in the corner and a lot of that was Tyler getting two feet in the paint and kicking out and just playing that certain style. It wasn’t like dunking with somebody’s flying off handoffs as we know and doing all that type of stuff. Burks was doing a lot of stuff off the catch and the reason he was open off the catch, even being as good of a shooter as he is in defense not want to help off of him, you were forced to because it’s just the dynamic of what happens with Tyler and Burks in the back court. That’s just what’s going to happen with Pal and Hero except you could kind of switch on and off with it where Pal’s the guy that’s getting two feet in the paint and Hero’s in the corner or you could do it the regular way. Uh it just feels like they could do different things there. There’s just going to be the question marks the defensively and how they can kind of keep that together. This is one of those lineups as I just mentioned like you have to have the right lineup around it. Like you can’t just throw three random guys next to these two guys and make it work. Like you have to have the right pieces in these lineups to really maximize it. And they have I mean we can go down the line. They have some guys that I think can make that lineup work and they can figure some stuff out. So I’m just interested in general to see how their chemistry is going to look because look we I think we can both agree that the the Terry Tyler thing even at its best. So, I mean, there was push back on that, but I don’t think it was as clear as a fit as I think Tyler and Powell is just because I think Tyler’s better with a shooter. I don’t think Tyler’s better with somebody that’s just pounding the ball into the floor and taking step back jumpers. And even when before all the stuff happened, that kind of, you know, that was kind of the case. We didn’t know what the starting lineup would be. We didn’t know how the fit would be. I feel a little bit better about this one. I feel like there’s a little more comfort there with Tyler and Powell. And we’ll just we’ll see how it looks offensively with the right guys around him. Well, there’s financial implications, too. I mean, that that’s the thing. Like if this doesn’t work, that forces decisions, right? If it does work, that may compel a decision. If these two guys really click, let’s say that they click the way that here’s one example. The Ditch and Waiters clicked, okay? And sometimes you just don’t know with a back court. Dragitch and Wade never really clicked. I, you know, they liked each other personally a lot. And I remember right after Goran came, I got a chance to do an interview with the two of them together uh for about 20 minutes talking about how they would play off of each other. And I thought it would be a challenge for Dwayne because Dwayne was used to playing with Mario Chamers. Norris Cole was basically like, “Okay, get the ball to Dwayne and spot up like that.” It was very uncomplicated. All right. Goran, of course, we know he he could spot up, but he you were better with him and the ball in his hands. Okay, that’s cuz that’s when he would get a rhythm. I was surprised how well Drag and Waiters worked. Like that one, they clicked immediately. I don’t know if it was because Goran had adjusted the things by then, but they looked better together. the whole 7-Eleven thing than Goran and Dwayne ever did. And that was even during the 1516 run to the uh the second round of the playoffs and to game seven where the two of them were had to carry because Whites Side and Bosch were out. So I I I am I’m interested to see how this looks. I think they’re interested to see how this looks because this does influence what you do. If they look great together, you may be more inclined to pay Tyler if they but you also may be less. Uh because if Norm looks terrific and you can and you’re gonna pay Norm $30 million a year, maybe you don’t have to pay Tyler 45 or 50. So I there is this it’s going to be very interesting to see how they connect on the court, off the court, because there is this sort of underlying issue of how are you proceeding with one guy in the last year of his contract. All right, on the other side, we’ll get to your last three here. Before we do, we want to mention our friend Lynette. You can find her at insurancebylanette.com or a aggressive insurance agency. The insurance agency that works for you based in Lauder Hill to service the entire tri county area. Uh Lynette will will do all the work for you herself on this. Uh but she does have a team behind her and if you have bad driving record, we always recommend going to her because she will definitely find you the best possible deal. So check her out insurancebyette.com. Huge Miami Heat fan or 954-5818800. All right, give me number three. Brady. Yeah. So, this one’s probably not that exciting when you say it, but there it gets more exciting, I feel like, when you add in the third player to it, but Dave Mitchell and Haywood Highmith are going to play together significant minutes. Like, those are just two guys. When I think about high floors, I I we’re probably not talking enough about Haywood and his role this season. Like, he’s going to be kind of a major key to a lot of lineups this year to kind of keeping them together defensively with the perimeter stuff. But, DaVon and Haywood are just going to be linked. they are it’s going to be a base of the zone stuff, the press stuff that they’re always going to want two strong defenders at the top of it. And the reason I bring that up is because so let’s just go back for a second. We talked about Yoic and Wear and I kind of mentioned adding Hero into the mix. If that’s kind of one of your core lineups, that leaves Mitchell, Haywood, Bam in kind of your alternate lineup. And the missing piece there that we’re going to there’s obviously two spots there, but Powell is going to be a major part of that. And I think when you when I think about Powell, I know we’re thinking about playing with BAM and playing with Hero. I’m interested in that lineup just because it feels like that’s going to be his way or Spo’s way of giving Powell the keys to the offense for certain pockets of the game where like, okay, go play your game. Like go go go take a bunch of go take tough shots, go take a bunch of threes, go dribble the ball on, pick and roll and get into the, you know, two feet in the paint. That’s going to be their lineup to do it. Last year, actually, I mentioned kind of the best net rating. The best net rating last year was DaVon Mitchell and Haywood Icemith. When you talk about significant minutes, I think they had 450 minutes logged, which was significantly more than than some of these other high net ratings. Uh 115 offensive rating and 104 defensive rating. So, they were able to figure out some offense there, too, even when you mix some guys around. Number one, it helped because DaVon was playing at such a high level offensive uh with the shooting and all that stuff. But, I still think he’s going to be, you know, a good offensive player for this team in a lot of these lineups. and he kind of the I almost said the lot because I said DaVon and Haywood, but I almost wanted to say DaVon and Powell because I feel like that’s one of those interesting back courts that we’re going to see a lot this season we’re going to be talking about just because we’ve been needing to see something where Tyler takes a break and offensively nothing changes where they just have they go out there and they’re still able to kind of figure out some parts of the offense where they don’t have to like because Tyler would usually come out and it turns into dunitan bam handoffs. It it becomes like a new offense. It’s not the same stuff that they’re running with Tyler. They can somewhat replicate some of the things they do with Tyler when they run stuff with DaVon and Pal or they could play off of that and Powell can kind of take some of the onball abilities. So, that’s kind of the threeman group I’m kind of interested in because the DaVon Heywood thing just feels like a given, but adding Powell to that I’m just kind of intrigued with in general. Um, and I don’t think a lot of people knew that that the Highmith Mitchell men were so good together. I I know there was some criticism of Haywood’s defense last year that it wasn’t quite at the level that it had been at before last year of his contract. They’re going to lean on him defensively. He has not been thrown into a trade. Um and you know that there will be parts of the season that Spolster forgets him and there will be parts of the season that he plays him a lot. That’s just been uh the norm with him. Uh no pun intended. All right, number four. So, I wanted to talk Andrew Wiggins. Like I had to throw Andrew Wiggins into one of these of like who I’m interested in playing with. And then I’m going around the board and I’m like thinking about who I liked seeing him play with. I’m gonna go with Wiggins and Bam just for this just for this reason. If they anchor a lineup with Wiggins and Bam, one of them has to be aggressive. Like it’s like it gets to a point where it’s like they don’t have to be they don’t have to be, but that’s the idea, right? Please, ideally, can they can somebody go and you know be aggressive and try to put the ball in the basket? But no, I mean defensively when we know what they can be and you could kind of this is obviously one of those other lines we were talking about where you could kind of throw guys around them and it could fit just because they are two defensive pieces. But in all honesty, it does kind of put the ball in their hands a little bit more often and forces them to go like if a lot of these lines we’re talking about the starting lineup. I can envision moments where Wiggins is kind of staying around the corner. He’s a cutter. He’s a baseline drifter. he’s kind of playing on the offensive rebounds where he could kind of just like drift a little bit where he’s not prioritizing stuff, but this is a lineup where he’s almost forced to. And if he’s not, if there’s a game where he’s kind of having one of those games where he’s not aggressive, it’s going to force Bam to kind of get the ball probably with five seconds on the shot clock like he usually is, but you have to go and try to, you know, make a move and put the ball up. Uh, so I there is some upside, I think, to this lineup in general. We’ve seen it last season. I mean, I was looking back. I mean, we we talk so often about like Wiggins, how he tailed off late in the season after the injury and the playoff performance, but he had some games in there like he did he did have some games in the regular season when he had the 42-point game versus Charlotte, when he had some of these other games where he looked like an aggressive offensive player. And when he sees the ball going a few times, he just he he it just changes the game for him. And who else does that go for? I mean, Bam. I mean, when he comes out the gate, when the Heats say we’re going to run this a specific play where they run the cross screen for Bam on the baseline, he get takes the first shot and it goes in. he usually has a better game. It’s like when he sees the ball go in a few times early on, when he gets the line a couple times in the first quarter, like when he can kind of just get into the game like that, it changes the game a little bit. So, I’m interested in this lineup specifically just because it feels like they’re going to need one of these two guys. And honestly, they’re going to need both of them. But let’s like at the very minimum, one of these guys to be consistently aggressive in the regular season. And to the point when when Hero is off the court that that’s when that’s when you’re going to need to see this because then more of the actions are going to go towards them and and you and I don’t want really want to talk about Bam and her Hero because like you said we’ve seen this year after year although I would like to see them get back to better efficiency on the pick and roll between them because at one point they were really good there and then it’s like the league figured it out. I haven’t looked at what the numbers were last year. I know they dipped quite a bit the year before. or it didn’t seem like they had quite the same effectiveness that they had. Uh maybe we’re going back three seasons now where they were really good. All right. I I have a fifth, but I I want to hear yours first. Um I have a fifth that I don’t think I don’t think we’ll ever see. So I Right. It’s just one I want to see. Is it with uh Is it with Caspers? Because I was thinking about Okay. Well, you go with it because I was going to Who do you Who do you want to see with Casper? Because I I have one, but I don’t think we’re going to see it. What? or at least not until like halfway through the season. Unless unless one of the guys that shouldn’t be sent to Sou Falls is sent to Sou Falls. What what what is your what is your pairing with with Hakonis? By the way, did I do that correctly? Because Alex says that I’m I’m pronouncing in that Spanish way. I don’t I don’t know. It’s okay. Anyway, with Cass, go ahead. I would say BAM just immediately thinking just because I feel like it’s the safest option, but I Who are you thinking? Is it more offthe-wall? I want to see him with Yovic. Okay, that’s a good one. I I I just think it would be I think it would be fun to watch them freestyle a little bit um together. I I don’t think we’ll see it. I don’t think we’ll see it uh for quite a while. Well, look, first thing we we’ve seen Cass with now with Larson. We’ve seen him with Wear, right? We’ve seen him with Khan Johnson, so we’ve already seen these combinations. I didn’t think he and Larson had tremendous chemistry um just watching them up close. No. Right. like who who would you who who are you interested in seeing let’s give you two more players that we haven’t talked about a lot. Who are you interested in seeing with Hakez and who are you interested in seeing with Larson? Hm. Hawkins is the tougher one and I think honestly it might be where just because I I mean I think back to the summer league when you know Hakz played for like a game or two and they kind of just kind of they had a chemistry and I just feel like Hawz plays better when he just kind of get a head start where he got to put his head down against the basket where a wear screen yes a bam screen is probably better than where screens are at this moment but I think the versatility of like the way teams are guarding wear when he’s just rolling to the basket where it just gives an opportunity and just a little bit of space for Hawkins around the rim. I just think that that’s kind of the one pairing I’d say I want to see a little bit of if if they play a little Hawkins. Pella’s interesting because to me it’s honestly it’s somebody like Tyler to me. I I think he’s best with the better players. I think Pella’s better like if if I think of a lineup for Pella, it’s like Hero, Powell, Wiggins, and Bam. Like I I I just think Pella fits better when he’s just playing with a bunch of good players and he can just go out there and just play his role defensively, dive on the floor a bunch of times. He’s not going to get the on ball usage that he just did in summer league where he’s taking pull of threes and doing all that stuff, but he doesn’t need to. I mean, he could find pockets to impact the game on the offball cutting and all that other stuff. So, I think Hawkins is more need the ball in my hands. I’m going to play with less good players in my lineup and Pella is more playing with the best players at Impact. Yeah, with Larson, I was going to say Tyler and we saw a little bit of it last year, but it it strikes me as Pella is the type, like you said, he’ll do the dirty work. Uh that Tyler doesn’t necessarily have to, but Tyler gets a second on the ball, ball goes to Pella. Pella just bleeps bleep up. I mean, that’s really like right. It’s just attack the rim recklessly, ends up on the floor, picks up two free throws during a a you know, a nine run in some pocket of the game. Like, that’s I think where he is right now. I liked some of the onball stuff better than I thought I would, but I still think when you’re looking for a role to carve out for him, that’s probably the role this season and where he finds himself 15, you know, consistent 15 minutes a night. All right, so we got through all of it. Um, we I don’t know. Did we miss any players? I don’t think so. None that were rotation players, right? All right. Anyway, um Brady Hawk, 305, Ethan J. call the five reason sports and uh yeah insurance byl.com prize picks use the code fivey more episodes to come

Now that the Miami Heat roster looks fairly formed for training camp, what are the pairings we are most interested in watching? Ethan Skolnick and Brady Hawk go through their lists, and try to include everyone.

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