State of the Heat series: Alex Toledo’s view | Five on the Floor

State of the Heat series: Alex Toledo’s view | Five on the Floor

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And again, like I said, legal in the state of Florida and they’re giving you 50 bucks. So, sign up, use our code FIVE. And now today’s episode heat nation. Yeah. Mercy down the Five on the floor. Ride for my dogs. Where is the game? You can check the score. Hustle hard. Couple stars wearing bubble frog kept the floor plan got all y’all seen the block stop one hand and pap it up. Welcome to five on the floor a daily insider show on the Miami Heat and the NBA featuring Ethan Skolnick, Greg Sander, Alex Toledo, Brady Hawk, and others from the Five Reason Sports Network. Also, make sure to subscribe to Off the Floor for the most heat anywhere. All right, welcome back to Five on the Floor. Here’s today’s floor plan. Away we go. We are in August. We’ve got a couple different series that are going to be going here. We’re going to be looking back the 2006 championship. We’ve already had George Dano on for that. Greg did an opening episode. Matteo Morga has been conducting lots of interviews. Eric Reid, our guy Mike Wallace. Uh he also spoke to Tim Reynolds. That’s all going to end up here at some point. So he’s been doing these interviews. There’s going to be a story over there. Also planning on getting some others who played for the team if we can. Uh and maybe even who coached it. So working on all of that as we go forward. But we also need to look at the present and the future. And for the present and the future, I’m going to bring on our various co-hosts. Not just those that you see here all the time like Brady, Alex. Alex is here today. tropical blanket. You can follow him there and Greg, but also others in the Five Reason Sports Network who may have different opinions. And I’m asking one question so that Alex could not say it was a tough question. I asked him prior to the episode starting. What is your state of the Heat? And I need one word. Uno. Uno. Uno. Not 12, not 100, not 3,000. I need one word. Then you can play off of that. What is your state of the Heat? What is your view of the state of the Heat at this very moment? I have not coached this. I want to get everybody else’s opinions. I’m going to speak less on these episodes after I get through the open than I have ever spoken before. Alex, what is your state of the heat? Tough question, Ethan. No, but my my answer my answer is satisfactory. Believe it or not, like I I know this is going to be hard to believe. I actually struggled with which word to pick. I had like three that I was going back and forth with. Uh, and I ended up kind of going back to this because I think satisfactory kind of cuts it right down the middle and it’s not too strong either way. And that’s kind of how I feel about their off season. Um, the other two words, just to kind of give people an insight as to kind of the way that I’m feeling about it, were a little bit more positive, I would say, like have a little bit more like closer to a positive connotation like pragmatic and opportunistic. Those are those are the other two that I was and and I think honestly they both kind of apply. But I do think Satisfactory hits it right on the head because I think it’s like, okay, Heat fans come out of this and it’s and they’re like, okay, good off seasonason, not great, not like an amazing off season, but they with how like divided Heat fans can be about just about anything, right? like uh I I think a lot of there there’s a lot of different like uh scenarios where the Heat come out this this off seasonason and fans are just like universally just disappointed or underwhelmed or or whatever like whatever negative word you want to throw in there. And I don’t think that’s the case here. I think Satisfactory hits it because they were opportunistic. they were pragmatic and and when they you know when Norman Pal uh became available and and they they you know they they snuck in there and got him just like when when Casper Yakushon became available at the 20th pick you know like I do think those words apply here as well but it’s nothing like there’s no home run aspect here. So that’s why I just kind of ended up just going back to the word that was a little bit closer to neutral because like yeah like these are good in a vacuum, right? when you zoom out and you look at the bigger picture of the Heat, it’s like where is all this going to? Like we know what their quoteunquote plan is as far as like, you know, um what they’re trying to achieve down the line, you know, bouncing and and bouncing back and trying to get that next star when it becomes available and setting stuff up for that. I think they’re kind of playing it down the middle again for better or for worse. I it’s just, you know, they’re going to be they’re going to be hanging around like the the the second half, I believe, of the Eastern Conference standings. And I think you come out of it with a positive offseason, but it’s not one that you come away like, “Wow, they did it again.” You know what I mean? So, I think satisfactory, I think it’s fair. Sorry. Once I can actually speak, I’m going to challenge you on the word here. All right? Because there’s a difference between satisfactory and satisfied. People are going to hear what you’re saying here and I know you’re applying it to this last off seasonason. They’re going to say, “Well, if you’re saying this is satisfactory, like satisfactory for this organization to be stuck in the middle as they have been now with what I know there’s a finals appearance in there, but we’re talking about three straight playin appearances and looks like this roster is headed for something similar again. They don’t. And but I want to be clear on that. We have to clarify because people are going to read that and they’re going to say or hear that and they’re going to say, “Okay, Alex is saying that this is satisfactory in the sense that you know he’s satisfied just to be again. You are not saying you’re satisfied with this. You just It’s just that the off season didn’t really do anything to set them back, right? And maybe push them slightly ahead. So, they’re kind of in a a somewhat more flexible position with a little bit more talent than they went into it, I guess. And now you can kind of see where it goes. But, Alex, you grew up with the uh with the 2006 championship and the big three heat. Like, you’re not satisfied, correct? No, I not. No, satisfactory does not equal satisfied in this case. I do think like again like you just look at the Norman Pow trade, that’s a home run when you just look at value. the C, you know, Casper and and who he was kind of expected to be and expected to go in in the draft, like to get him at 20, these individually are very good moves, very positive moves. So, I don’t want to try to make it sound like I’m, you know, trying to bring them down from what they are. Like, those are good moves. Like, if you would have told me before the summer like, hey, they trade Anderson and Love for Pow, they draft Yakushon at 20, like I’m like, yeah, that’s a positive offseason. And so, I I think I thought positive was too broad and not a good enough word. So, I thought satisfactory was good because it’s like you it’s it is sort of positive but it’s not satisfied and I really did struggle. Like I could have easily gone with pragmatic. I could have easily gone with opportunistic because I I I do think honestly opportunistic is probably the that might have been the better one here because that’s really what happened. No, but that’s what happened. No, but they were opportunistic for one move, which is the Powell move, which I think we’ve universally acclaimed. But your view has been that prior to this off season when they had in what you thought was a championship window with Jimmy Butler, you do not think they were opportunistic at that time. Correct. I’m just trying to frame what your overall view has been on this because I don’t want it to come off like you’ve been the guy that’s been satisfied with this front office all along because you really haven’t been or at least you weren’t during the Jimmy era because you thought there were there were things they could have done to enhance that team that would have given Jimmy a better chance to get it over the finish line and they didn’t do it right. I mean I’m I’m characterizing that correctly. Yeah, I think well said is pretty is pretty fair. Like I wouldn’t necessarily characterize it as like overall negative towards the front office by any means, but yeah, for sure. I do feel like there was some meat left on the bone when you just talk about like that era, the Jimmy era, not only the way it ended, which everybody knows like how I feel about that. I feel like I’ve made that clear a million times on this show, but just throughout the era, like I I understand the swings that they tried to make, and you know, I don’t fault them for everything that happened. But yeah, like I do think there was other chances at either retaining guys or or or possibly trading for other guys who weren’t, you know, in that home run caliber category and and that’s really kind of where they I think struck out because they they they went all in and once the all-in plan didn’t work, their backup plans were just kind of, you know, leaning in on what they had already. And I I don’t know, I feel like they they get a little bit clo too close to the sun sometimes when they try to play it down the middle, if that’s even possible. I don’t I don’t know if those two things can coexist, but like they’re they’re trying too much to play down the middle at times. And I think that’s where they get it gets tricky. In politics, that’s called extreme moderates. Uh, okay. On the other side of this, we’re going to talk about Cash App, and then I’m going to ask you the same question that I’m going to ask everybody else here. We’re going to actually try to keep these the format. 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Satisfactory. What would lead you to be more satis What would lead it to be more satis I’m trying not to say satisfied. What would lead it to be more satisfactory for you as the season progresses? And what would lead it to be less? I guess more satisfied. It’s like they they honestly satisfactory remember not satisfied but it’s okay but more satisfactory then this is starting to get tricky what would lead it to be more I’m I don’t want those words to get conflated for you because you’re going to get raked across the coals for that I’m saying what I’m I’m trying to give you the word satisfactory what would make this what would make you feel that this was a more satisfactory course or direction or season or feeling than you have right now I guess I just think they’re already satisfactory so that’s where it gets tricky for me because it’s like more satisfactory kind of implies that it’s closer to being satisfied, right? Like you’re getting closer to that but but not satisfied. I guess just what like for them to be like what I said on on the last show that we did with you, Yumi and Brady is where you know they they go back to being a team where the whole is better than the sum of their parts, right? Like I do think like if you can put it all together and like you get like that best version of yourself then I do think that makes you feel better. Not only not because like oh this is the new core you’re going all in on what you have right this second but it’s like okay you’ve got something here right like if pal really I think um thrives on the Heat which is a really like different context than what the Clippers were last season right where like Harden is this built-in alltime initiator. He’s not he’s not gonna have that here, right? And and that’s not me downplaying Tyler. It’s just being real. Like for as good as Tyler can be as a as a passer and has grown there, you know, there’s just levels to this stuff. I do think the floor is not going to be quite as open. He’s going to be asked to maybe handle a little bit more, create out of pick and roll a little bit more. If he can come out on the other side of this thriving, maybe you get another like you get a a healthy year out of Wiggins and all of a sudden this team is like, “Okay, like 45 47 48 win good.” And that that’s that’s like their their ceiling. then that’s kind I think that’s I’m closer to that because then it’s like you’re trying to achieve this vision where you know this star becomes available and you trade for him and I think the like the foundation becomes a lot more solid if you have a season like that whereas if you’re just kind of hanging around 500 all year long you’re back to being in the playing I think that’s what would make me less satisfactor it’s like okay well you instead of having like a a real like quote unquote gap year you traded for a player that helps you now and it was a great trade by by all means, but then you ended up in in a similar spot with similar results. I think that would be like the worst of both worlds. Um because it’s like you’re not really achieving either thing there. You’re not really a good team. You’re going to be stuck in the middle and you’re going to end up with in a similar spot that you were this year. So it just feels like that this is what I meant before with like for better or for worse down the middle. And that completely down the middle path I think is what would make this less satisfactory. Okay, I’m going to try to I’m going to give just as we close. I just want to so people understand this and again this is going to be uh Alex’s view of this is is again satisfactory not satisfied. Fulfilling this is an adjective of course uh fulfilling expectations or needs acceptable though not outstanding or perfect used in a sentence. The brakes are satisfactory, if not particularly powerful. We’ll have Greg or Brady on next. Have a good one, everybody.

To start a new series in which other hosts of Five on the Floor and in the Five Reasons Sports Network share a word to describe the State of the Heat, Alex Toledo takes his turn with Ethan Skolnick.

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