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As a guest on the Conversations With Cam podcast this week, Wade revealed a key assist to host Cameron Oaks Rogers in the Miami Heat locker room near the end of his career and before his family went public. “This was before everything happened publicly with Zaya,” Wade explained. “In the locker rooms, I started to like become a little different because I started listening a little bit differently. “I realized that toxic environment that, you know, that we grew up in. I remember having a conversation with UD because he he seen that I was like I wasn’t in on the jokes no more. I wasn’t laughing. I was leaving out of the locker room when I would hear certain things.
“I had to sit and talk to him about I had to sit and talk to him about it because this was my brother and the godfather to Kaavia [youngest daughter],” he continues. “He didn’t know. and he eventually changed his thinking, his tone, his verbiage, and then his actions. “He trusted that to have a safe conversation with him in a safe environment allow for him to feel safe and really talk to each other man to man and say and say what we don’t what I didn’t like and what I didn’t approve of and and also share with him what I was dealing with you know in my household.”
Tim Reynolds: Pelle Larsson's deal will start at $13.5 million in Year 1, ticking upward, with a combination team/player option for the final season, per source. A great deal for him, a team-friendly deal for Miami.
Shams Charania: Miami Heat guard Pelle Larsson has agreed to a new four-year, $60 million contract extension, with a mutual option for the 2030-31 season, Austin Brown and Steven Heumann of CAA Sports tell ESPN.
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After failing the Heat’s preseason conditioning test last year, Mitchell revealed this week that team president Pat Riley told him, in May, that he needs to reduce his body fat this season. “The crazy thing,” Davion Mitchell said on the “Deuce and Mo” podcast, “is him and Spo [Erik Spoelstra] didn’t say anything about basketball at the end of the year, when you have your exit meeting, there was no basketball [talk]. It was ‘get your weight down. Be in shape. That’s all we want.’ This is Heat culture to the T.” According to Mitchell, Riley told him bluntly: “We understand the situation but this year, we’ve got to get you back down.” Mitchell listened; he said he has lost “a lot” of weight.
The Heat’s conditioning test is considered among the most daunting in the league. With most teams, “you have to run up the court three times” in one minute, Mitchell said. “Miami does it five times. It’s one of the hardest things I’ve done in my life. You’ve got to run it in one minute and you only have a two-minute break. You have to do it five times. “When I ran last year, I didn’t even pass. I wasn’t even there [training at Kaseya Center in the weeks prior]. I just had a kid. I just had my daughter, and I literally had to get on a red eye and go the gym. It was tough last year.”
Mitchell further elaborated during his appearance on the Sacramento-based podcast. “The beginning of the year last year, I was going through a lot mentally,” he said. “Having a kid. Honestly, I didn’t feel I was in the best shape at the beginning of the year last year. Spo understood that and respected everything I do. He knows how I work hard. “It was a time that I was so messed up in the summertime, there were times in camp I didn’t feel like myself. I was super quiet, not even myself. “I respected [Spoelstra] because he put me out there and made me grow as a player. He really believed in me. I was going through so much mentally, it was hard to have confidence in everything I was doing. It wasn’t basketball; it was life. People don’t understand we’re still human.”
Speaking of his interactions with Antetokounmpo — including his visit to Greece for a basketball and bonding session — Mitchell said: “You can see why he became MVP. The mentality is so different. All he wants to do is win. Even going to dinner with him and having a conversation with him, it’s winning about everything, not just basketball — life in general. Everything he’s trying to be the best he can be at. When you have someone on your team it’s hard to even lose. When you have so many people with a mentality like that, it’s going to be fun.”
Mitchell also spoke of the tantalizing defensive possibilities with a roster featuring Antetokounmpo, Bam Adebayo, Andrew Wiggins and himself. “People knew where to put Bam because they know how good he is defensively,” Mitchell said. “But now they have [to deal with] Giannis too? Where are they going to put him? I can pick somebody out of bounds, and if they blow by me, I know someone will have my back. “They want to win Defensive Player of the Year too just as much as we do. We have this competitive spirit, where, ‘I’m trying to win Defensive Player of the Year’ and ‘I’m trying to win Defensive Player of the Year.’ “We have three, really four [great defenders], with Wiggs. There are some matchups he guards the best player. Sometimes I do. I’ve got shifty, quicker guys. He’s got guys who are much taller, get to their spots. The defense is going to be amazing. I can’t wait.”
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Heat Central: Draymond Green DEFENDS Giannis after Channing Frye called him a 7’0 running back who isn’t as skilled: “I think this is a dumb statement. To call one of the greatest in the game Giannis, a 7FT running back is PATHETIC. It takes a lot of skill to dribble end to end and dunk the ball. Takes lot of skill to get in the paint and get finished and kick outs. I’ve seen him take people to the post and put in the rim. — To act as ‘he’s a RB’ cause he don’t have the same skillset as Joel Embiid, ok cool. Then Shaq was also a RB. Kevin Garnett did not have the skillset as Joel Embiid… That’s wack. Calling somebody that great a 7FT RB, that’s clickbait.”
Though veteran guard Gabe Vincent would welcome a Heat reunion, the Heat hasn’t made an offer to him. A strong case could be made for extending him a nonguaranteed deal to compete with Dru Smith in training camp, but Miami hasn’t presented that option. (That would not preclude Miami from signing another player to a 15th standard contract.)
Patrick Beverley: "It's nothing I've ever experienced in basketball in my life. That Heat culture is absolutely real. Anyone who's been there, the practice facility, the locker room is downstairs, you got to go upstairs to get to the practice facility. Before you open the door to get to the practice facility, you have to have on knee pads and your jersey has to be tucked in every single time. I don't care who you is. Discipline off the rip. Before LeBron James got to the Heat, they didn't have a motherfucker with no headband. Think about it."
Davion Mitchell: "I would say the beginning of the year of last year, I just wasn't, I was going through a lot mentally, just having a kid, it was a lot going on. And I didn't honestly, I didn't even feel like I was in the best shape the beginning of the year last year. But one thing I did like is like Spo, like he understood that and he like, he respected everything that I do because he know I work hard. People know that I work, but it was a time and the moment where like mentally I was so messed up last year in the summertime that it was kind of hard for me to just be myself even in training camp. There is times in training camp but I didn't even feel like myself. I was just super quiet, I just really wasn't myself. But I respected him because like he still put me out there and he kind of made me like grow. Like he was like made me grow as a player and I was like, I am doing these things and he know I am not really confident so he kind of made me confident in a way. He believed in me, I am like, oh snap my coach really believing in me, like I can really just believe in myself."