Miami Heat Preseason Schedule REVEALED | 25th Greatest Heat Player of Last 25 Years is LOOSE

Miami Heat Preseason Schedule REVEALED | 25th Greatest Heat Player of Last 25 Years is LOOSE

Miami’s preseason schedule has been announced, including matchups versus two of the biggest names in basketball. We’ll tell you why this is big news for Heat fans. Plus, we kick off our series of the top 25 Heat players from the last 25 years. Who makes the cut and who doesn’t? Find out on today’s episode of Locked on Heat. [Music] You are Locked on Heat, your daily Miami Heat podcast, part of the Locked On podcast network. Your team every day. All right, welcome to Locked on Heat, your daily podcast on the Miami Heat. Whether you’re tuning in on YouTube or on your favorite podcast app, thanks so much for making Locked on Heat your first listen every day. I’m Wes Goldberg, here with David Rmill. Both of us are credentialed Heat Media members who cover this team every day. For daily content on the Heat, join more than 17,000 Everydayers and click that subscribe button on YouTube. Today’s episode is brought to you by FanDuel. Football season is around the corner. Visit the FanDuel app today and start planning your future bets now. Really excited for today’s show. We’re debuting our 25 of 25 series, looking back at the top 25 Heat players of the last 25 seasons. And today, we’re going to be talking about a fan favorite who nearly became a Heat legend. But first, the Heat announced their preseason schedule on Tuesday with a bit of a surprise. They’re going to be playing their first preseason game against Orlando Magic in Puerto Rico. The preseason starts uh October 4th, and they’ll be playing that game in Puerto Rico in the same arena that uh Bad Bunny is currently doing his 30 show residency at. So, that’s fun. Uh nice bit of trivia there, right? We got a little bit of trivia coming up later on, too. Yeah, this is this is how the segways work. This is how the you know, you kind of lead into that. But I did I did check to see if the residency was going up into the preseason and it’s not. It ends in September, Miami’s first preseason game the beginning of October. So, and a lot of these residencies for Bad Bunny, you know, on the stage there’s like a house that he’s got up there and then he he’ll have like a very famous guest, a celebrity kind of hang out on the stage with him for part of the show. And I was like, “Oh, it’d be kind of cool if Tyler Hiro was just or Bam Adabio or somebody was just like hanging out at the Bad Bunny concert as part of the show.” But, uh, unfortunately, that won’t be the case unless he decides to extend the residency. Any truth to the rumor that he’s signing a 10day and joining the team for that match up in Puerto Rico? I’ve heard some scuttle, but I can’t I can’t deny. Can’t confirm or deny. Cannot. I think I’ve told you this before. I I uh my first interaction with a Bad Bunny before he was Bad Bunny. It was just when he was a uh I guess an upand cominging. Yeah. Well, he was he was neither bad nor impressive in any way, but he was just uh in in Charlotte for the All-Star game and he was in a celebrity game and I was like, “What the heck’s a bad buddy? I don’t know who that is.” And then this little fell walks by me on his way there and I was like, I mean, again, I was like as close to you as I answer my microphone, as close to him as I was to my microphone right now. And I had no idea who he was. And I just didn’t even bother interviewing him or asking him any questions about his participation in the celebrity game. And that’s uh that’s my bad money story. His rise has been pretty meteoric in terms of how quick it happened six years later. Yeah. I mean, we’re talking about It’s crazy. It’s crazy. He’s the most streamed pop star in the world. Uh he’s probably the biggest pop star on the planet outside of Taylor Swift at this point. Wow. I mean, really? Yeah. It’s crazy. He’s huge. He has a 30 show residency. It’s in his hometown, granted, but it’s still how many people can even go back to their hometown to do a 30 show residency. It’s crazy what he’s doing. It’s absolutely wild. Yeah, absolutely. Uh but let’s get to the news of the day as it pertains to the Miami Heat. Uh they have released their preseason schedule. You can see it up on your screen if you’re watching on YouTube. Uh but they’re starting October 4th against the Orlando Magic in Puerto Rico. Technically counts as a Miami Heat home game. Uh not that it matters because they still have uh three other home preseason games. October 6 versus the Milwaukee Bucks at Cassaya Center. October 8th against the Spurs at CASA Center. They hit the road for two preseason games in Orlando and then Atlanta. And then they wrap up their preseason with another home game against the Memphis Grizzlies. So David, uh what stands out to you from all of that? Uh the matchups at home versus Milwaukee and San Antonio. I think those are great tests early on uh to go up against some of the bigger names there. I I don’t imagine that Victor Whippenyama andor Jana Dakmpo will be playing much during those games, but it’s still exciting to see those. Um I like the idea of them going internationally there. I I know it’s partly because Miami is in such close proximity to Puerto Rico and that you can kind of foster some growing uh I guess partnership with the Hispanic community, Latino community. So I mean that’s that’s to me those are the things that really stand out to most. Six preseason games, too. That seems I thought they were trying to curtail those. I looked it up. It’s the most preseason games since 2021. The thing it’s it jumped out to me, too. It’s a lot of preseason games. Obviously, they extended it because they have one in Puerto Rico and you can’t give up that gate revenue for valuable preseason games. So, you have to have the three preseason games, I suppose, at home to add to it. I don’t really know the reason why. I’m assuming it’s just because you have one in Puerto Rico. So, um but yeah, it’s a lot. It’s the most since 2021. Yeah. So, uh that’s an interesting choice there. the two against Orlando, that makes sense. There’s such a close proximity, although one is internationally. And then you’re going up against the Hawks, another divisional rival there. So, um, nothing really to take from that. I like the idea of playing Memphis, too. That’s a retool Memphis team that some people are believers in. I’m not necessarily as high on them as others are, but I think that uh John Morant again being the last game of the preseason, we typically tend to see uh teams kind of ramp up by that point. You want to at least have like a pretty close to full dress rehearsal, even if it’s just for a quarter or a half. And then, you know, in the second half, that’s clearly the opportunity for the guys that are fringe players to have one last audition really one, you know, make one last case for them to to be become part of the regular season roster or to maybe get a 10day or not a 10day, but a two-way contract or something along those lines. So, uh, you know, still a good opportunity to see a fun team in Memphis, uh, when they come to town. So you’ve got the the match up at Puerto Rico, three home games against exciting teams in Milwaukee, San Antonio, Memphis, and then two road games against divisional rivals in Orlando and the Hawks. So I think it’s a great preseason schedule, albeit interesting that they do have the six full game slate there. But uh we know Eric Smolstra is champing at the bit. He loves that. It’s like more preseason games. Hell yeah, bring it on. Another opportunity to do some uh do some extra work there. Although I know he also likes the opportunity to have, you know, more offc court work and practices and stuff like that if they’re not that busy with the scheduling. Well, that’s what stands out to me with this too. Uh media day is going to be September 29th. The beginning of training camp will be September 30th. So that’s a Monday for media day. Tuesday the beginning of training camp and they have their first and uh preseason game on Saturday the 4th. But they’re going to have, you know, it’s out of the country. They’re going to have to travel to Puerto Rico. I would imagine you probably you probably leave the night of the second, have the full day Friday, and then you play the game on Saturday. Maybe you can travel Friday morning. Camp in Puerto Rico. They could do a portion of the camp in Puerto Rico for sure. Um, but have we got any confirmation about it? Have we got any confirmation about where they’ll be doing camp? Because I don’t I imagine they might leave the way they have in the Bahamas. They might just go and do the full camp in Puerto Rico. So, you’re not allowed to go out of the country consecutive years. and they were in the Bahamas last summer, right? So, they were they were So, you can’t do it consecutive years, but if you have a preseason game, you could do like a you could call it like the pregame practice or shoot around. So, maybe they leave Thursday night, do a practice Friday, and then do your preseason game on on the Saturday night. Either way, it’s going to interrupt the training camp, right? Like, you’re either going to have a shortened training camp or an interrupted training camp or whatever. Not by a whole lot. And at the end of the day, you’re still getting six preseason games in there. So, you’re still getting all the work done that you need to get done, but it is just a little bit of a a schedule quirk that I I I suppose is worth mentioning here. Um, I want to go back to the teams that they’re playing though. Yeah, I think the Bucks I think we might see Giannis in this game, right? Like they have some stuff to figure out, right? The Bucks like they got to figure out the Miles Turner Giannis pick and roll partnership. Like that that’s those are two guys who’ve never played together, right? like they need to start developing chemistry. Their court time is going to be very important. And that Bucks team, you and I might not think of much of them, but they need to compete in order to kind of keep Giannis happy. At least that’s the idea. So, there’s a ton of urgency around that organization. And then with San uh with San Antonio, Victor Webyama’s working his way back, right? And I know that he’s been playing uh pickup and stuff and and he’s been pretty active over the summer, but getting those preseason reps to make sure that he’s in playing shape after uh after the uh the illness uh sidelined him for last season. That’s going to be big there, too. So, I think we could see uh him. Unfortunately, no Duncan Robinson to uh to to put him on his heels there. But juke, no juke there. Uh and then uh yeah, you get a couple different kinds of teams. Atlanta and Memphis who could certainly push the pace. you see Orlando twice. Uh we are starting to see basically every preseason the Spurs and the Grizzlies on Miami’s preseason schedule. Those tend to be staples these days for whatever reason. I I think it’s just teams organize their own preseason schedules. So it tends to just be organizations that know each other that could just be like, “Hey, we don’t want to spend a ton of time on the preseason schedule. Do you have an opening?” Yes, cool. We do, too. Let’s let’s rock and roll. Um one last note on Puerto Rico before we move out. This is actually the seventh time Miami has played in Puerto Rico uh in a preseason game. So they played in 1993, 1994, 2003, 2005, and 2006. So I thought it’s not a new thing, but they obviously have extended fan base in. Shout out Carlos Aoyo. I’m sure he’ll be there. That’s a great call. Yeah. And Bad Bunny has been to Miami Heat games, so he’s a Heat fan as well. He has got his restaurant down here and all those kinds of things as well. Um, other schedule notes, the NBA officially announced that the schedule for opening night, Christmas, Martin Luther King Day, as well as some other games from opening week. We did get the opening night and Christmas games from Shams last week, but the NBA announced uh national games for the second and third nights of the regular season. Um, and uh and we also got the MLK slate. Miami not involved in any of those. Not expected to have a ton of national TV games anyway. But we are going to get the group stage announcement uh about the the the groups for the um the the inseason tournament, whatever we call this thing now, the Emirates fly away in seasonason tournament that nobody cares about. We’re going to get that on Wednesday and then we’re going to get the full schedule on Thursday. So, we will be sure to update you with the latest then. But we’re going to start with where it all began for the 25th best Heat player of the last 25 years and the moment that almost kept him from ever wearing a Miami Heat jersey. 25 of 25 is next. Today’s episode is brought to you by FanDuel. August 26th is officially FanDuel Futures Day, a brand new holiday for football fans who live for bold predictions and pre-season hunches for just 24 hours. FanDuel is giving you deals on NFL season predictions. So whether you’re calling your MVP, eyeing a longshot division winner, or ready to crown your Super Bowl champ before week one even kicks off, this is your moment. take a flyer in the MVP race. I don’t even know who we’ve got an MVP at this season. Josh Allen, you go Patrick Mahomes. It’s as wide open as it’s been, it seems like. So, there’s a lot there. I don’t know if there’s even a preseason favorite. Yeah. Is there a preseason favorite to win the Super Bowl? So many different options. Enough for everybody to place a little wager and see if maybe you can make your prediction early on. So, visit the FanDuel app today. Start planning your future bets now because futures day is one day and one day only. FanDuel play your game. We’ll be right back. [Music] Welcome back to Locked on Heat. Thanks for making Locked on Heat your first listen every day. We’re starting our 25 of 25 series looking back at the top uh 25 Heat players of the last 25 seasons. Each episode, we’ll be taking an in-depth look at every player who made the list as voted on by us and our Lockdown Heat insider community through the lens of what made them a definitive part of the franchise’s history. Coming in at 25, he’s the handsome one. The stag of Hickory Hills, a man whose jersey hangs in his former coach’s office and whose hair is almost as silky as his jumper. He’s on the loose, David. It’s Max Stroo [Music] number 25. What do you think? Uh, I’ll be honest with you, a little surprised to see Max uh at 25. I’m going to have to hear some worthy explanations there. I’m I’m grateful for all our listeners that chimed in and offered their opinion. I know you and I both had our own list there, but Max, a brief but interesting stint with Miami from a two-way contract to a regular season player to starting in the NBA finals before eventually signing a free agent deal with the Cleveland Cavaliers. I mean, that’s as close to running the gamut as you can with in just three seasons with one particular team. And not only that, but the I mean, I know we’re going to get into the details of when he signed with the team, but that first season with Miami, the 2020 2021 season, right after Miamiy’s bubble run in Orlando, a short, you know, a short off season as short as you can possibly get and then signing with the team in training camp uh and and joining the team and playing a number of games that season. So, uh a very interesting career, uh start for him. I know he began his career technically with the both the Boston Celtics and Chicago Bulls. He was a a G-League player for a while there. Well, don’t get too ahead of yourself. Let’s uh where So, I want I want to go over where we ranked them, you and I personally. Yeah. Yeah. Where so what we did the the the method to the final big board, the final 25 ranking here was that we basically took the average of all of our locked on heat insider community who voted. We averaged all of that out and we had that in one column. We took my rankings and put that in another column and we took your rankings and put that in another column and we took the average of those three together and we came up with the final board. Max Drew’s highest ranking by any voter locked on heat insider community or either of us was at 14. Wow. His lowest ranking was not ranked at all. So a pretty wide margin. I had him at 23 on my board. Where did you have him? I had him unranked. He was in my honorable mentions there. So, that’s uh it’s wide. It’s a wide range, right? So, that is 14th. I mean, I 14 is really high. Uh but let’s Okay, let’s do the background here. So, like you already mentioned, Max Drew joins the heat in 2020 when he turned a training camp invite into a two-way contract. And by 2022, he was starting playoff games alongside Jimmy Butler, Bam Adabio, Kyle Lowry, and PJ Tucker. In three seasons with the Heat, he averaged 10 points on 37% shooting from three, 2.7 rebounds, and 1.5 assists. His highs include scoring 20 points to close out the 76ers in the second round of the 2022 playoffs, and scoring in double figures in eight straight playoff games during the 2023 Finals run. His heat tenure ended when he signed he when he was signed and traded to the Cavaliers in the summer of 2023 after he agreed to a 4-year, $63 million deal with Cleveland. We’ve got a bunch of other little uh uh kind of segments that we want to kind of jump into. We’ve got a sliding doors moment. We have a little bit of uh and a couple other games. And plus, we are going to pin him against another all-time heat great here in a second. But what about a little trivia here? Okay, I can’t wait to hear it. So, I’ve got uh three trivia questions. I’m going to give you the softball first. Okay, sounds good. Max Juice’s career was almost cut short by a devastating injury he suffered while playing for the Bulls G-League team. What was the injury? Oh, it was a blown out knee. Uh, I’ll count it. ACL. Yeah, that’s fine. Okay. Yeah. All right. Um, I didn’t I didn’t know which ligament in particular, but yeah, that was a good cop out then. Four players made at least 40-pointers during the 2023 finals run. Who were they? Heat players, I should mention. Okay. 40 uh at least 40 total three-pointers during that playoff run in 2023. Well, clearly Max Stru would be one of them. Yes, Max is one of them. That’s an easy one. I’d say Gabe Vincent. Yep. 2023. I I the tough one is whether or not Jimmy made the list because he did have a number of games where he was hitting those three, but I can’t say he got 40. So, I’m going to leave him out of it. Um Kyle Lowry. No. Okay. Think about it from that from the Duncan did. Yep. Okay. So, that’s three or four. Uh, who would be the fourth who was in that corner in the 2023 finals run all playoffs long just hitting shots from the corner? The finals run in 23. Uhhuh. I can’t I can’t remember. I mean Kale Martin. That’s right. Eastern Conference Finals MVP. I mean, how could I have forgotten that? You see, I I so tend not to think of him as a three-point shooter than when he had that magical run as specifically the best shooter on the planet. Like I can’t Caleb Barton. Unbelievable. Yep. So more threes than Jimmy Butler who had some historic games during that. Jimmy was in the 30s. He didn’t quite crack that uh that 40 number. That’s funny. And neither did Lowry. Yeah. Uh last one here. This is the toughest trivia question we have. All right. Here. Max Duce went to Lewis, a D2 college, before transferring to Depal for his final two years in college. He had only one D1 offer when he was coming out of high school. Where was it from? Uh um Northwestern Chicago State. Okay. Which I didn’t even know was a D1 basketball program. Yeah. I went with the only Chicago school I knew was a good guess. It’s a solid guess. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, coming up next, the play that could have turned Max Struce into a bonafide Miami Heat legend. All right, we’re doing our 25 of 25, the best 25 Miami Heat players of the last 25 years. Let’s go to our uh series of little segments here. The first one, our sliding doors moment for Max Struce. A moment that could have changed the way this player is remembered for better or for worse or could have changed the trajectory of his career, how he left, if he stayed, etc. Just a sliding doors moment, a what if type of moment for Max Struce. And David, I think there’s only one that we could really talk about here. I think it’s got to be the three-pointer that was called back in game seven of the 2022 Eastern Conference Finals. I think that’s the ultimate Max Drew sliding doors moment. You disagree? I I think it’s the ultimate moment that he’ll be remembered for. Although I I would point to earlier in that run where he goes crazy. Like everybody remembers Jimmy being the the wild card and being the amazing player that he was in that playoff run. They don’t get into the playoffs to begin with unless Max goes off in that second play in game versus the Chicago Bulls. Like he was the difference there. So that’s what I remember most of all. If there’s going to be a singular play, it’s that um maybe uh the year before. Was it No, it was that same year also against Boston with Derek White. Uh he could have pulled down the rebound that time. Didn’t box Derrick White out on the tip in that was devastating. So, uh so the the Bulls playin game is a great call, right? I mean, he went off in the second half of that game. That’s definitely one of the high moments of his career. And it’s why he ended up having this, I think, reputation of being clutch in a way that my always sort of ra rising up in the playoffs in the big moments. And it’s why he was always out there in those critical moments that Eric Sper likes to talk about. And I think it’s why he’s ranked as high as 14 by some people because those moments were just so loud and so meaningful. And they don’t have those runs to the conference finals or at least one of those runs to the conference finals if not for that big max eruption in the playin tournament. No doubt. Um, yeah, it was always interesting like the debate with Max was always uh such a different one because he was kind of lumped together with Duncan as White Shooter and he’s really not like that was never really the the sole basis for his game, the sole foundation of his game. He’s not as good of a shooter as people think he is and he’s not as limited in other areas as people think he is. Like he’s just white. Right. Right. So everybody kind but without that knee injury like who knows like I mean I think he got his way into the league in the first place based on some athleticism there and the fact that he could shoot but he was able to put the ball down get to the hoop play some defense. Um but by that point remember Duncan was suffering from what I think was the the contract and the weight of that contract and the expectations with that. Yeah. So, yeah, he really struggled in that regard and then Max was like, “Well, I I’ll do it.” And so, he kind of stepped up in those moments. And so, that was always the perception with of Max was that, well, hell, he’s better than Duncan. And I always thought that was unfair because Duncan clearly still the better shooter, but Max more versatile and more willing to embrace those challenges that particular season than Duncan was. So, in terms of the sliding doors moment, a moment that could have just changed the way we think about Max Strus in a Heat uniform, I still think it’s that three-pointer called back. So, it’s there’s 11 minutes in the third quarter. Stress knocks down a three-pointer um in the corner, cuts the Celtics lead to what had been as much as 17 earlier in the game. Miami is making their run. That three-pointer by Struse cuts the lead to two points. It’s 56 to 54 at that point. And then after several minutes, um the the uh the three-pointer was overturned by the replay center in Sakus and those points just come off the board and Max Juice was really upset about it. Eric Sper was really upset about it. They talked about it after the game. It went at that point when it had gotten called back when it when it when those points came off the board, it went from a six-point game to an 11-point game in the second half of game seven of the Eastern Conference Finals. The Heat end up losing that game by four points. And we all remember the Jimmy Butler heave for from three at the end. Had those Max truce points been on the board, maybe he doesn’t have to take that heave from three. Maybe, you know, maybe it’s potentially, hey, two points wins it and he’s able to just drive right by Al Horford, he doesn’t need the three-pointer. So, had that shot counted right in the replay center apparently showed, and we could still argue about this, and I don’t think it was I don’t think they got it right, but it apparently showed that his that his heel had been out of bounds, that it had been on the baseline on the on the out- of- bounds line there. So, had that shot gone in, I teased it pretty dramatically. I think it ends up being a shot we never talk about. We only talk about it because it got called back, right? That’s right. So, unless he hits the game-winning shot at the end of the game, we’re never talking about this game. So, maybe it’s not the sliding doors moment. But remind me, what was the other play that you mentioned before that could have been a sliding doors moment for him? Boxing out Derek White. Uh, it’s another one of those things where if he had done it, we’re never talking about it. Fair. Um, but nobody remembers that. I I remember it just because we were there and we’re like now we gota deal with another game seven like we thought it was really upset with himself after the game. It’s one of the things I remember the most. Yeah. So I I remember that game six and we’re thinking now we’re starting to sweat like when they’re up 3 0 uh and for it to be like you’re you’re this close and then Derek White um yeah hits that shot at the end. It’s just that’s it’s where like it really you start to sweat. you start to really start to think, wow, are we going to be on the wrong end of history for the first time. Um, so no real sliding doors moment for Max Truce in his career. I think look to to me uh it is the one singular moment everybody remembers him from from a Heat fan perspective and that’s strange uh because again as you pointed out unless it doesn’t get overturned it’s just one of another threes that they made that game. I don’t personally care because again it’s like oh you’re focusing on the one shot that gets overturned and it makes it a bigger deal. But what about the 20 they had missed throughout the course of the game when they just played really really poorly. And that’s that’s more where I think of it. No one play really ever defines anything unless it’s in the waning moments of a game. Certainly not a three-pointer that was called back in the third quarter. So I I I always had a hard time with the amount of focus placed on that one. But it it is unfortunately the defining play of Max’s career to me. Again, even going back further, it’s what he did uh in the playin tournament for that run the following season. That was that was a huge moment. And it was just he seemed to be able to go on 70 80 runs by himself and and that was how I’ll always remember Max’s tenure in Miami. I don’t have him in my top 25 just because I think that’s a disservice to some of the other guys. I think there’s a little recency bias as to why he might have been viewed as 14. Again, it’s the Duncan Robinson leaves a bad taste or that contract leaves a bad taste in your mouth. Max is all of a sudden he almost became like the anti-Duncan for some people in a Exactly. That’s exactly it. Yeah. It’s is you Duncan Robinson or not Duncan Robinson? I’ll take the not Duncan Robinson every time. That’s how I see it. So, we got a couple more things that we want to get to here. Uh is he jerseyw worthy? All right. So this is this is the idea behind this is is this a cool jersey to own and wear to a heat game? Understanding that any heat jersey is kind of is appropriate to wear at a heat game. I get it. But would you consider Max Truce like you have to invest whatever a jersey I don’t buy jerseys. What’s a jersey cost? 100 bucks, 150 bucks. Yes. Would you invest is this is he jersey worthy to to quote Elaine? Is it like spongeworthy? You know, it’s an allocation of resources. You can only have so many. Understanding that we’re not gonna have a jersey for all 25 players on this list, do you think Max Drew is jersey worthy? Like Sean Hiken, like I love that he does like random jersey sightings, whether it’s in Vegas or Portland Blazers games. If in five years, maybe even a little bit long. Five years I think is a minimum. If in five years you see a Struce jersey at at the arena, you’re going to be like, “Oh man, that’s awesome.” because it’s going to be such a small brief footnote in Heat history. So to that point, I think it is a really cool thing to have. I just don’t know that. I mean, he’s been gone for as long as he played with the Heat basically. Like he’s been two seasons in Cleveland and I think, you know, the fact that we’re still kind of talking about him speaks highly like Yeah, he played a third season with Miami, but he was just coming off the bench. It was Yeah, I’m going to go no. Um I’m going to go no. I just I name on this list. it. I like Max Drew. I got no problem with Max Shre. You don’t need to buy a Max Drew jersey. That’s ridiculous. Yeah. Um is we have another thing called the Eddie Jones test that we’re going to be doing with our Olive Players. So Oh, yes. The Eddie Jones test. If readded to the roster in his heat prime, so not the way he is or what, just the way he was in his heat prime. If you readded him to the current roster, would this player make make the current roster better? would he make a significant difference? Okay. And and then how would he play? So the Eddie Jones test, just why is it named after Eddie Jones? Number one, Eddie Jones was one of these kinds of players that just made every team better. It seemed like he also left in 2005, comes back in 2007. Y and had he been the way he was in 2005, when he came back in 2007, he would have made a real difference. Unfortunately, he wasn’t. He didn’t make much of a difference at all. So, this is why it’s called the Eddie Jones test because it’s just the name that I thought of and I needed to name it after somebody. So, um the Eddie Jones test. Does Max Drew pass the Eddie Jones? Alonzo Morning was right there. No, but that’s too obvious. It’s like everybody knows Lonzo. Eddie Jones is more of like it could be anybody. Fair enough. Fair enough. Like there have been a number of he players have gone and come back, but Eddie Jones is a good one because that’s a another So, does does pass if he came back to the roster today? Absolutely. He’d start uh and I actually I’d see a move I would over hero pal Wiggins. Who’s he starting over? Um he’s not starting over any of those guys. You don’t think he’d start over Wigs? No. Alongside Wigs maybe in place of a pal sixman. Okay. Interestingly. Okay. I could see it. I would have mind Wiggins for for Stru Swap. Wiggins goes back to the team that drafted him first overall. Why not? I I I could see getting draft picks back. Do you think Wigs is a better player than Max Streus is at this point? Yes. And during his Heat tenure? Well, certainly is way better now in Cleveland than he was in Miami. Like, he’s added the playmaking element. He’s a better defender now in Cleveland than he was in Miami. But if I’m getting Miami Max Stre who’s averaging two rebounds and one assist a game, give me Wiggins. All right, fair enough. Um, I think he passes the the Eddie Jones test, though. I think if you add him to the team coming off the bench, I’m a little concerned about Miami’s three-point shooting. Like, once you get past Hero and Pal, there’s not a ton of great three-point shooters. If you have Max Drews coming off the bench, that would be that’d be awesome. Yeah, he would he’s an obvious passes the Eddie Jones test. Um, last one here. We’re going to call this one versus. We’re going to pin the current player that we’re talking about against the player who came before him and ask, did we get it right? So, because we, this is the first one, I’m going to go with the first player or the player who received the most votes who missed the cut. Okay. In this instance, we’re talking about Michael Beasley. So, Michael Beasley is not going to be in our top 25. He comes in at 26. Um the the uh the Lockdown Heat insider community voted Michael Beasley at an average of 19.3 in terms of his placement. So they had him in their top 25. You and I No, I didn’t have him. You had him at 24. Yep. So did we get it right? Uh is Max Truce better than Michael Beasley? I’m going to say no. Um and wait, is Max Truce better than Michael Beasley? No. I I think the problem with with Beasley, like we kind of misremember those two seasons he spent uh when he was first drafted, but he was really good. Like he was a complimentary player to Dwayne Wade during some kind of mediocre seasons where they didn’t achieve much playoff success and then of course it’s the big the big three afterwards and that era and that’s when everything kind of just changes. And yeah, he was even brought back at one point, but uh those two years were kind of hard to place for him because like maybe he didn’t live up to the expectations necessarily, but you still had Dwayne MVP in his prime Wade on the roster. You were never going to expect it’s not the typical case for a number two pick. Normally the the the keys to the car handed to that pick right away. It’s like go do your thing. We’re a bad team. We’re not going to win anyway. But you still had Dwayne basically at at his very best during those two seasons and Beasley kind of had to learn how to figure it out and I don’t think he ever did. Like I I um you’re giving him credit for something that he almost didn’t have an opportunity to do though. Like I think you’re wrong on this. I think Max Struce was clearly the better player in a Heat uniform over Beasley. So I didn’t have Beasley ranked. Stress had playoff moments. Beasley didn’t. Struasley. No he didn’t. Strus did not score more points than Beasley during those season. Not on average, but total points playoffs included. Maybe that playoff run where he had some big games. Stress had real moments like he like Strus’s fingerprints are kind of all over Heat history. Like you can’t tell the story of the last 25 years of Miami Heat history without Max Shrews to a certain degree. Whereas Michael Beasley, I like Bees, dude. I love Bees. But like those two years that he was on the team before he came back during the big three era, those two years where he’s on the team were pretty forgettable. Like you don’t really need the story of Michael Beasley. It’s sort of more of a what if that had really panned out or something that we really have that conversation. But sorry Max Strus from a scoring perspective. like he scored a total of like 2,300 points in two seasons with the Heat, which is more than Max has scored for the first four seasons of his career. So I I don’t that’s just I think that’s the moments he had a bigger impact. It’s just part of a bigger era which is there are other names on this list which I’m like why do you remember him that it’s like okay are they a footnote because they happen to be part of a team that achieved more team success and this is my whole problem with the MVP race and other NBA awards cases in general like so is your case for Beasley is that he was just a better player than Max Drew? Absolutely. And he was like he was a bigger better scorer. Prove it. For he had two seasons, right? He had two seasons. Well, you’re giving him points for what could have been, but you’re not g like you’re not he had two seasons. Points to what could have been. He was he was a better scorer and a better player and a better rebounder. He was he was a better everything than Max Struz for two seasons. Like I don’t know. Stru teams. Stress had the moments cuz you’re starting Mark effing blout. Like what are you talking about here? Okay. Again, I’m not giving credit for stuff that don’t compare. I mean, he was on a better team. He gets points for that. No, he shouldn’t. He shouldn’t get better points for playing on a better team when he doesn’t contribute to being on a better team. Like, you lose. He had his moment because I I the the averages the I guess people breaking the tie are going to be the uh the fan poll here. The lock community and they agree with me, not you. I I guess if you’re a big fan of the Bachelorette, I don’t know. like what’s what are we doing here? Like I mean that’s fine. Yeah. Hey, he’s not top 25 for me. But comes in at 25 in the Heats. 25 of 25. It’s our first installment. Uh we’re going to be doing these every day. So you’re going to want to stay tuned into future episodes of Locked on Heat to find out who is number 24. And I’m telling you, David, Max Streus, not jersey worthy. This next guy 100% Colt classic jersey worthy. Thanks for making Lockdown Heat your first listen today. For your second listen, find the Locked on NBA podcast where there is no offseason. Doug Matt and Hayes keep you up to date on contract negotiations, rumors, and everything you need to be the most informed NBA fan. Find Locked on NBA on YouTube or wherever you listen to podcast. Part of the Lockdown Podcast Network, your team every day.

The Miami Heat announced their preseason schedule, complete with a game against the Orlando Magic in Puerto Rico. Wes Goldberg and David Ramil break down the Heat’s preseason matchups before beginning their “25 of 25” series counting down the 25 greatest Heat players of the last 25 years, starting with Max Strus.

0:00 Intro
1:30 Heat’s preseason schedule announced
11:30 25 of 25 kicks off

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