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Welcome to ladies episode of Five on the Floor on the Five Reason Sports. Now, we're thanks joining us on your favorite podcast app. On Android recommends Spotify or the Five Reason's YouTube channel. On Apple, we recommend Apple Podcast. Also, check out Off The Floor. That's our Discord server, $2.99 per month. That's where you can communicate with us and other heat fans. We also take topics for Five on the Floor from there, so if you want to make suggestions, that's the place to do it, $2.99 per month. Again, the link is right here in the description. Also, check out the great sponsors and the Five Reason Sports. Now, we're including our friend Nelson, huge Miami heat fan. He'll talk to you about that, but more importantly, he runs Mobile CRM and Staffing Services. 5, 6, 1, 8, 9, 1, 96, 20. That's 5, 6, 1, 8, 9, 1, 96, 20. What do they do? If you work in a medical office or a hospital, they bring the X-ray equipment and staffing to you. They take care of everything for you. Go to their website at c-arm-and-staffing.com. You can see everything that they do there, everything that they're going to bring, everything that they're going to set up. And again, these are really good people and big Miami heat fans. So check them out, c-arm-and-staffing.com, Mobile CRM and Staffing Services. And now, today's episode. [MUSIC PLAYING] Welcome to Five on the Floor, a daily insider show on the Miami heat and the NBA featuring Ethan Skolnick, Greg Selvander, and Alex Toledo, plus others from the Five Reason Sports Network. All right, well, back to Five on the Floor. Here's today's floor plan. I'm Ethan Skolnick. I'm Ethan Skolnick. I'm Ethan J. Skolnick. And at Five Reason Sports, I got Alex Toledo. You can follow him at Tropical Blanket. And Greg Selvander, you can follow him at Greg Selvander. So what we're going to talk about today is we're going to go away from the norm of late. Because it's been a negative off season, I think. I mean, I think from a fan perspective, and again, there are different subsets of fans, OK? There are the fans who go to the games. They're the fans who follow the team casually. And then there are the fans on Twitter who just want what Jersey swaps, basically, OK? And again, even on Twitter, there's subsets of fans. But there's a particular set of fans that is very, very-- I would say, what's the word we use, Greg? What word could we use? Discontent? Yeah. Discontent and loud. Good. I think those things. I mean, it's a subset of fans that, like, just-- they just want to move. They don't care what the move is. They just want to move. And again, they're the ones who, you know, we're kind of always trying to define what is running it back mean. We've come up with some definitions for what running back means. I think to a lot of those fans it just means Tyler Hiro is still in a heat jersey. Geez. But that's basically it. It doesn't seem to matter how many players are swapped out. Like, there are the fans that, like, if you re-sign Caleb, you're running it back, right? And you don't want to do that. If you don't re-sign Caleb, how could you let him go to division rival? It's the same fan, OK? So again, it's been very negative this offseason in the space that we tend to swim, OK? But there's actually some good things happening. And I think when I was going through it today and particularly like the two events that occurred today, which was USA Basketball's Game Against Serbia, which is obviously a friendly, getting ready for the big tournament in Paris. And then also the heat having another Summer League game. And these things happen back to back. And if you follow us on playback, playback.tv/5RSN, you could have watched with our group. And then you start to accumulate these things. You're like, wait a second. This is good. This is good. This is good. And this is good. And I'll go through some of them. And then I'm going to make a case for something that I want to get to your opinions on this. Here's some of the good things that are happening. Bam Adebayo looks fantastic for USA Basketball. Like, he looks like the best big on the team. Certainly better than the guy in Philadelphia, which I'm not surprised because I just think Bam's Game, and I said this beforehand, is much better suited for this format than Embiids is, OK? And obviously AD is there, too, was kind of a combination of both. But Bam hit 3-3s today. Look comfortable doing it. I mean, LeBron was praising him afterwards, but he just looks terrific. I mean, he just looks, he's in great shape. He looks great. Jaime Hawquez, on the USA Select team, I was told that coaches believe that he was one of the two best players on that team. Now, the other one, by the way, is Cooper Flack, which tells you where he's going to be. And teams are going to be tanking for that kid because he's 17 years old. But the other one was Hawquez. Brandon Miller was on that team. There were other high-level guys on that USA Select team, OK? Hawquez was one of the two best guys. And we saw it. We saw it when he showed up at Summer League and looked like mannequins boys, right? And is coming back to Summer League. OK, that's good. Miller Ware, today, had another monster performance in Summer League. And seems to be getting more and more comfortable, OK? Shah Johnson, who we jinxed, OK, he shot Johnson. I apologize. I did it right when he was on with us. We jinxed-- you should listen to that podcast, by the way, because he fans are going to fall in love with this kid. He did spray in his ankle today, so we'll see how bad that is. Again, we jinxed him. But he looks like exactly the type of player who is going to feed right through their system, OK? And become a key contributor for them. And replace, maybe not exactly the things Caleb did. But some of the things maybe PJ Tucker did a couple of years ago. And it's going to be a core-- I think he's going to be like a core rotation player for them in the future. The second round pick, Larson has not shot the ball well, but he's done other things well. And he has impressed from everything I've heard in practice. They've got a kid in Isaiah Stevens, who we've talked about, OK, who is making people notice because he looks like he knows how to run a team. And that's a valuable commodity. Terry Rosier is working again and is expected to be ready for training camp. I haven't heard anything negative about Duncan Robinson at this stage, OK, in terms of coming back to the back injury. Now, there's the Jimmy thing, OK, and that's going to lead into what I'm talking about. All the other news has been good. I mean, the only thing I would come up with is Yovitch, right, who sprained his ankle on the last day. We still believe it was a sprained, by the way. Sprained his ankle on the very last day of workouts in Miami. And then it doesn't look like he's going to participate in the Olympics. So that's a bit of a negative, but he'll be ready for training camp. Overall, though, this stuff is good. And here's where I'm coming to, Greg, and I want to see if you agree with me. The heat's future looks outstanding. The heat's present is what I'm not so sure about. Like, it looks to me like they have built the foundation for a team that when they sort of turn the bend here, like they're going to have a lot of things going for them. I mean, I believe that they hit on, well, for certainly the previous two first round picks, I believe they hit on. And I think they hit on this year's. So replenishing their system, they're getting growth from some of these young players. Bam is entering his prime and is developing other parts of his game. Okay. I think they've got Rosie around a decent contract provided that he's healthy. Okay. I think the future looks, and again, Terry's a little older, obviously in the 30s, but I'm talking about some of these other guys. The future looks really good. It's the present I'm still a little bit more concerned about. Actually, that all comes back to this. Is their superstar going to play like a superstar? Are they going to get contract to your Jimmy to elevate these guys maybe before they're ready to be on that big stage? Or what we're really talking about this season is, okay, enjoy Jimmy for one last year. And then next year there's going to be a pivot, but there's going to be a pivot to something good. Is that fair? I think it is, and I think discussing the pivot is not the worst thing in the world. And the fact that they've kind of replenished the developmental pipeline, I think is a huge part of this that we shouldn't ignore. They needed to do that. I think we talked about did they have enough young players in the pipeline that we felt like fit the system and could fill different roles and things like that. And it looks like they've replenished that. They've got a couple guards that they're looking at and Zion Poland and Isaiah Stevens, Josh Christopher's in that mix down there. You know, in Summer League and then obviously Khalil Ware and Kasha Johnson. So there's players to talk about now. Bam, shooting threes is always going to raise eyebrows because I think everybody inevitably wants them to go with a little bit more size and the way to make that work is stretching the floor. So, I think the moral of the story is there's elements of the Jimmy situation. Fans can't control. I don't even know that the organization can control, but what they can control is some of these other key elements and kind of having all their ducks in a row otherwise. And hopefully that'll be if not a supplemental aspect of a Jimmy led team this year that maybe overperforms. I saw a win total. I don't know which sports book was offering it, but they had the heat at like 48 and a half wins. I think that one was wrong, actually, and I apologize for that because I think that's something that was put on our Instagram, not by me. The win total I got today was 44 and a half. That sounds unrealistic. Which, yeah, that's the one that was actually emailed to me. The other one, I think, was a mistake. And it sounded like a mistake at the time. I mean, 44 and a half, I think last year was 46 and a half. If I write, so it's down a little bit from there. But, you know, again, I think that it's understandable and we've talked about this. When you look at the Eastern Conference, there is like this golf between the teams at the top and the teams at the bottom now and the heat are somewhere kind of in the middle, which is a weird place for them to be, but it's not a big group in the middle. Like, you look on paper and you're like, okay, Boston, Philadelphia, Milwaukee, maybe Cleveland or Lando, New York, Indiana, maybe. And maybe you have Indiana a little closer to Miami. Then it's like Atlanta and Chicago sort of sliding back to these other teams, like Toronto, Washington. I feel brilliant sliding back even more. Well, exactly. Charlotte, I mean, these teams, they're going to be pretty awful. So, like, there's this floor under the heat, but there's also this ceiling on top of them. And so I think that 44 and a half sounds about right. Actually, it's a little higher than I thought it was going to be based on the rough season, but I think they're projecting maybe better health. But I guess when I look at it, you know, Alex, you know, again, this season, so much of it is on Jimmy. I mean, it just is. It's going to be as long as he's here. But I think a case can be made that, like, the development and the young talent acquisition and development part of the heats operation is probably at the highest level it's ever been at. Because they just keep finding guys over and over, whether it's in the draft, whether it's in the summer league team is a reflection of that. And I think the frustration of the fans is the execution on the top end. Right, the execution of finding, and we've talked about some of the circumstances that have played into this that have gotten in their way in terms of finding that other piece to put there with Jimmy and Bam specifically. But I think that's more of the frustration, but it's like, and I think that's part of playing this now with the fans. Well, listen, Adam Simon and his group, like they're giving you guys every single year. Yeah, so let's figure out something to make it work now. Yeah, I think it's a good way to represent the way that fans feel because even for it, like, and I agree with you for what you were saying at the top as far as like there's been just kind of this general layer of negativity hanging around. He fans head after the off season kind of, you know, came and went as far as like free agency. You know, nothing happening with the Donovan Mitchell front. It's just kind of going very unceremoniously. And, you know, just re-signing with Cleveland, which I feel like so many people even outside of Miami are rooting for him to not re-sign just because Cleveland is such like a, it feels like they've already like hit like a plateau, even though they haven't like reached those highs yet. It just kind of feels like how much more do you have there to uncover with that mix. But regardless, like outside of that stuff, I think heat fans are in agreement that like, what we've got in the margins is pretty good in the past few years. And, you know, like life said, the two-way stuff last year wasn't great. And I feel like they're usually much better with that stuff. And they've quickly replenished it here like it's quickly become very interesting. And it's guys that we've been talking about recently, like Keshad, and of course he just has to get her the day after we talk to him. And you know what, if we're going to, if we're going to, you know, take the blame for the jinx, then lockdown has to take the blame too because they talk to him around the same time as me. So we're going to share the blame with the lockdown guys. But no, in all seriousness, I think Keshad looks like somebody who could play from day one, not that he's going to be in, you know, immediate rotation in game one, but he looks ready. Isaiah Stevens, the stuff that he's done as a point guard, just continues to, you know, really impressed me today. He had some turnovers today, but even with like five turnovers or whatever he had, he still had eight assists. And I feel like if you look at his summer league stats, the assist to turnover ratio is going to be fantastic. Just from watching him play like the guy, you know, is a very quick processor. And, you know, the way that he runs the floor so seamlessly, so naturally, I think is a, is a, and also just like he keeps scoring at a high level too, not that he is like a, you know, a very prolific, prolific score, but he can score. And he can make threes and to like there was one today where it was, he pulled back and hit a contested three over somebody's face and he's been shooting at a high clip too. I just, I'm very impressed by him, Josh Christopher, you know, we were talking about it the other day. He's very streaky and after two straight games with 20 plus points. Today he shot three of 13 from the field. So that's, that's part of the Josh Christopher experience. But even that is, is tantalizing because you get a former first round pick talent who is athletic, you know, can score on and off the ball, can defend a bit. You just kind of, you know, maybe put it all together, keep that guy in your program so you can find the best out of him. But when you start going down these names, even Larson, who like you mentioned, hasn't shot amazing, but all the other stuff has been there. And I understand that like all that other stuff isn't as valuable if the shot isn't going down. But honestly, I feel pretty good about the shot. Like he is somebody who the shot looks amazing. It's as far as like the, you know, the aesthetic part of it. Right. And today he hit one with no dip in it. Like once he got the pass, you know, he can attack the basket. He plays physical. I like the defense, you know, the way that he can move the ball. Like he's shown a lot of different things. And I think once the shot does start to fall, when he's playing next to better creators, like I think he's going to look a lot better. And then other than that, like where huge game, they've got a lot, like they've got a lot of young talent. The thing is to me is how much do we see them in the regular season? Because that's really what I'm going to be watching for. And that's what I'm going to talk about on the other side because it does relate to Jimmy in a lot of different ways here. Before we do want to mention a great sponsor of the Five Reasons Sports Network, our friends over at BetterEdge, we're going to have, excuse me, we're going to have a USA basketball competition on there. We're going to get that up here in the next couple of days. And that one's going to be free. All you got to do is enter your phone number. You got a chance to win. We're going to give away prizes. But any day you can bet on BetterEdge, it is legal in the state of Florida. There's no big, better is no how important that is. And you can find the line that you want. So go to BetterEdge.com, use the code 5RSN. That's the number 5RSN. At BetterEdge.com, you get $20 right away to play, and yes, it is legal in the state of Florida. What's next? At Moss Adams, that question inspires us to help people and their businesses strategically define and claim their future. As one of America's leading accounting, consulting, and wealth management firms, our collaborative approach creates solutions for your unique business needs. We leverage industry-focused insights with the collective technical resources of our firm to elevate your performance. Uncover opportunity and move upward at MossAdams.com. What's next? At Moss Adams, that question inspires us to help people and their businesses strategically define and claim their future. As one of America's leading accounting, consulting, and wealth management firms, our collaborative approach creates solutions for your unique business needs. We leverage industry-focused insights with the collective technical resources of our firm to elevate your performance. Uncover opportunity and move upward at MossAdams.com. How dangerous is it to unwrap a burger at 40 miles per hour? More so than you think. In a little over two seconds, your car can travel slightly more than 117 feet, which is the same length as 20 bicycles. Anything that distracts you while driving is dangerous. That's why driving while texting can be deadly too. So put it down. It can wait. Don't drive distracted. Shift into safe. A message from the Colorado Department of Transportation. So piggyback on what Alex is talking about there, Greg. How much you play young players sometimes depends on how ready they are, and sometimes it also depends on where your team stands, right? I guess the question is, if this team considers itself to be a contender, then some of these guys may not get as much run early. There may be some frustration from Heat fans if we're seeing more of an Alec Burks or even a Kevin Love or even a Thomas Bryant or others who are not really part of the future. I guess it depends. Are you going into the season thinking of yourself as one of those teams, the way that our exposure described it last year? Do you think of yourself that way until you're not? I guess. I think I get the sense that it's the opposite. They may have already shout out to Barry Jackson accepted reality and they maybe know that they're not necessarily in that tier of contenders. So to me, this is a watch and see approach where you start the season. I think you sprinkle in the young guys. Try to get as much out of them as possible. See what works, what doesn't. And if you get off to a good start, then maybe you need to tighten the reins a little bit and maybe you do play the veterans a little bit more if it's the difference between a six seed and a four seed or something like that, where you think that it is based on the fact of the way that your season is going. But if you do come to grips with the fact that you're not a contender, regardless of the Jimmy angle and the Jimmy situation, I think you need to lean into these young guys to some degree because it's only going to fortify. What you have going forward. You already have young pieces that are at the top of the roster and Bam out of bio as much as people don't want to hear it Tyler hero is still a young piece that's part of the core here. You want to surround them with good talent. Irrespective of what happens with Jimmy Butler. So to me, this is a watch and see kind of thing. I think to start the year. You may see some early collil where, and then they're going to give them a chance to mess up and then they may go to a veteran presence in addition to maybe some spot minutes or something like that. But I would give the give the kids a chance this season because I don't think anybody's coming into this looking at them and saying they're in the top tier of the conference. I think even internally, they would understand if fans looked and said we're in that next year. So at that point, why not try to get your young guys a little bit more PT. The other one, you know, Josh Richardson is another guy who, you know, it's funny because, you know, we all got old here but in 2015 everybody wanted to see him play. Right, because he's the young guy and now I got a feeling like if he's playing ahead of an Isaiah Stevens or, you know, even a, you know, a Larson or somebody else along those lines, they're going to be like what we know what Josh can do. Like we've seen it like this is, you know what I'm saying? And, you know, obviously he brings a certain personality that fans like but there is, there's this need for freshness constantly in an NBA fan base and particularly in the heats fan base and I almost kind of get the sense that some of he fans would be feel better about losing a couple of games they shouldn't lose as long as they're getting to see some of the kids do their thing as opposed to maybe pulling out a game that isn't going to really mean anything down the road because Alec Burks makes a three, you know what I'm saying? Like I just, I do feel like there's a certain segment and I understand it to some degree. It's like if you're in a title or bust mentality, I get that. Okay, I don't think that's where the heat are. You know, I think that they want to be competitive and I think that, again, as long as they're paying a guy $50 million to lead the franchise and they're paying another guy about that, that a younger guy. They're going to want to win basketball games. Like Eric's going to, and Eric's going to try to win basketball games. Like that's the way that he's going to approach this. But I was like, go to you on this. Like how much does the Jimmy thing play into this? Is it possible to play him? Like maybe he starts to like playing with some of the kids. That's not going to mean he doesn't want his money because he wants his money above everything. But I don't know if I saw the energy and I see Jimmy is in France right now or something like that. So I doubt he's watched a minute of some of the action. But I guess, and probably not Team USA actually, to be honest, but how do you think the Jimmy thing plays into it? I mean, it definitely factors in a lot. And you know, it's got to mean something that the heat, it seems like, did a good job like replenishing their program of young guys pretty quickly. You know, in the midst of all this, right, of all this stuff with Jimmy and the uncertainty of whether he'll be back after next season. Like I got to imagine that was part of their thinking, you know, regarding the draft and who they took, especially, you know, considering they took a younger guy again. And I mentioned this on draft night, they took a guy and where who we all think would like we'll be playing for them this season, but over somebody like the Tristan December, Dalton connects with 23 years old and it's probably more ready made. Like I got to imagine, you know, that like the Jimmy stuff influenced that part of the draft pick. And then just essentially being able to having to go out there and replenish some of these guys like it has to factor it has to because the whole build is kind of up in the air right now like you know what you're going to have for this season like the roster is probably not going to change between now and the start of the season. And I know people don't want to hear that. And I think now it's just about getting a full sample with this group. And even though people want to act like it's the same exact group like the reality is that the Terry stuff. And then everybody, you know, was was mad at Andy the other day for saying that that was their off season acquisition or whatever. For all intents and purposes, you know with what they had to offer and their financial situation that's that's what it was I'm not going to defend Andy for saying that because it just came out wrong and I understand like I just think that the delivery was a little bit off. But what he's saying is is factually true. Like it's just it's just correct. And that Terry was the move now you can argue about whether it was a good move or not. Everybody wanted to move and then now people don't like the consequences of the move a few months later because it took you from going after Demartan or what ever right but no like you got to see now a full sample Terry starting with this team. You know Terry playing with Tyler Jimmy and Bam all together like I that's what you have to look forward to at this point. And outside of that, like I think I wonder how much we see of these young guys, because I'm always going to go back and think about like you know the J riches and the Alec Burks and the K loves getting minutes when they're available. Like I don't think those guys will be benched for young guys and I would love to see these young guys get as much playing time as possible but I just don't feel like that's the way that spo moves unless he feels that that is the best decision. Like I don't think he'll play, you know, a petal arson over an Alec Burks if he unless he thinks that Larson 100% is a better option and I know that sounds kind of obvious but it's like he's not going to play him for the sake of just getting young guys minutes. He's going to play whoever he feels is the better player, and I'm going to be interested to see who he feels those are, but like they got guys who are ready to play specific roles. So, it's going to be interesting to see how often they get thrown into those roles and you know we're going to still get plenty of time to watch them because we know with the injury and availability issues. The team has died over the past few years, but yeah it's just going to be kind of intriguing to see how spo balances all these parts. They got a prediction for you before we close Greg, and ankle injury tonight today aside. I bet you Johnson plays the most minutes of the young guys for this team this year. When surprised me plugs a lot of holes and I bet they're going to use every bit of his two way status until his pro rated contract can fit under that apron and then sneak him in there I'm with you there I get that. I think fans maybe would love for it to be Khalil Ware because of the upside there, but I think just initially the guy who fills the gaps is kasha Johnson. I just I can hear the spoke quotes at this moment right. I mean you know what he's going to say about him. He's just a heat guy. All of it. It's just like it's same things. The energy that he brings to our group he's going to say all of these things and you're right as other guys sit he's going to be the guy who plays I just and I understand why he fans are going to want where to be where. And I kind of feel like Larson's the guy is going to get squeezed a little bit at first by a guy like Birx or by Richardson kind of being in this sort of perimeter slash wing rotation. I think it's going to be Johnson. I just listening to him talk like it's like he's seriously like made in a heat culture factory. And like they identified him for a reason they almost drafted him in the second round and I just. I don't know it's the minutes may be there for him. They may be there for him as a small ball for a lot of these situations and you know I guess hey you know some resigning hey would change his that equation a little bit but Martin's not there anymore. So there are minutes to be had. And a hot kids may get a few more of them but I you know I think I think hot kids is going to get more reps as a result of it. But I don't know I mean Jaime was playing a lot of minutes anyway. I mean a lot of the season I mean he was playing the most minutes on some games. I just think I think Johnson's going to play a ton. I just that that's where I'm at with it and it'll be funny because the fans will flip on that because right now they love him. Like the reaction to our podcast to the tweets and all that kind of stuff. But if he's playing more than where it'll change. Right you know them like that sick. Sickle. Sickle. It's exactly what's going to happen. But anyway we want to do something a little bit more positive here because I just think that the totality of what we've seen over the past couple of weeks. I mean this team knows how to identify players coming out of college like they just do they they're very very good at it right now. It's it's then you know getting LeBron and Bosch to join Dwayne stuff that has stopped over the past few years. But the other stuff they've got a lot they've got a lot better at. All right thanks to our sponsor see arm and staffing see dash arm and staffing dot com. We always talk about prize picks to use that code five FIV and of course better edge five RSN. Have a good day everybody. Thank you for listening to the five on the floor on the fibers and sports network after all. 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Gambling problem call 1-800-Gambler. What's next? At Moss Adams. That question inspires us to help people and their businesses strategically define and claim their future. As one of America's leading accounting consulting and wealth management firms, our collaborative approach creates solutions for your unique business needs. We leverage industry focus insights with the collective technical resources of our firm to elevate your performance. Uncover opportunity and move upward at MossAtoms.com. How dangerous is it to unwrap a burger at 40 miles per hour? More so than you think. In a little over two seconds, your car can travel slightly more than 117 feet, which is the same length as 20 bicycles. Anything that distracts you while driving is dangerous. That's why driving while texting can be deadly too. So put it down. It can wait. Don't drive distracted. Shift into safe. A message from the Colorado Department of Transportation.
