MIAMI — Two days after issuing a harsh rebuke to the approach of second-year center Kel’el Ware, Miami Heat coach Erik Spoelstra walked back some of those comments prior to Saturday night’s game against the Oklahoma City Thunder at Kaseya Center.
“I didn’t articulate that in a great way, and that wasn’t fair to Kel’el,” Spoelstra said. “What I’ll say is I’m fully invested and invigorated about the opportunity to develop Kel’el, and our staff feels the same way and we’re gonna give him everything we have to make sure he becomes the player that he wants to become, that we need him to become.”
In the wake of Thursday night’s home loss to the Boston Celtics, Spoelstra was asked about Ware only playing 8:49, including no action in the second half.
Spoelstra first characterized it as a matter of strategy.
“It was a tough matchup for him in Boston with all the coverages, and the same thing tonight,” Spoelstra said Thursday. “”He just has to stay ready.”
But Spoelstra then took it another step during that postgame media session.
“Look, with Kel’el I know that’s a lightning-rod topic,” Spoelstra continued on Thursday. “He needs to get back to where he was eight weeks ago, seven weeks ago, where I felt and everybody in the building felt he was stacking days, good days. He’s stacking days in the wrong direction now. He’s just got to get back to that. Stack days, build those habits, make sure you’re ready and play the minutes that you’re playing to a point where it makes me want to play you more.”
From there, Spoelstra went in a highly atypical direction, having rarely criticized his players publicly during his 18-season tenure as Heat coach.
“I get it with some young players,” Spoelstra said. “You sometimes subconsciously play poorly to say, ‘Hey, I’ll play poorly until you play me the minutes I think I deserve. Then I’ll play well.’ That’s not how it works.”
That last comment drew rebukes from no less than former Heat players Dwyane Wade and Udonis Haslem during their work on Prime’s NBA studio coverage.
Saturday, Spoelstra turned the focus into pouring into Ware’s possibilities, of wanting to take the second-year, 21-year-old center to the next level.
“I’m invigorated by it,” he said of that challenge, “And we’ll have to figure some things out. That’s part of the development of young guys, they’re all not going to develop at the same time at the same rate.
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“It’s not all going to be linear. We have more young guys than we typically have had all at once, and at different times they’ve all looked extremely promising, including Kel’el.”
The growth with the 2024 first-round pick has been there, Spoelstra said. The challenge, Spoelstra said, is inspiring more.
“I look back at where he was last year at this time and where he is now,” Spoelstra said, “I think he’s markedly improved, not only with his approach, but his work ethic, his professionalism and his game.
“I do have to figure out some things, and it might not happen immediately.”
So far this season, the Heat largely have struggled when playing team captain Bam Adebayo and Ware together in big lineups.
“There’s some rotations that they just have to produce a little bit better and the impact and on-court on and off has to be a little bit better,” Spoelstra said. “And that’s what I’m excited about the second half of the season.”
