Erik Spoelstra rejoins Heat in Bahamas, addresses state of team for first time in four months

Erik Spoelstra usually enters training camp refreshed following a full offseason to decompress and spend some time away from the sport. But his 15th training camp as the Miami Heat’s head coach is the exception.

Spoelstra, 51, missed the Heat’s first training camp practice on Tuesday morning because of the birth of his third child and first daughter, Ruby Grace Spoelstra, on Monday. He took a flight to the Bahamas to join the Heat at Baha Mar resort on Tuesday evening and was able to lead Wednesday’s practice.

“It’s been pretty hectic,” Spoelstra said following Wednesday’s morning session. “But it’s obviously a beautiful time for our family and I feel very blessed. I spent a lot of time with the family the last couple of days, and then able to take a flight here and spend today with my Heat family. It’s the best of all worlds. I appreciate everything. And both mommy and daughter are doing great.”

Addressing the state of the Heat for the first time since the end of last season in late May, Spoelstra described Wednesday’s practice “as very competitive.”

Even with 13 players returning from last season’s season-ending roster, there are a few rotation spots up for grabs. The Heat needs to find a new starting power forward following the departure of P.J. Tucker, and guard Tyler Herro is also pushing for a starting role after winning the NBA’s Sixth Man of the Year award last season.

“It’s interesting. It makes it fun,” Spoelstra said. “It takes you back to when we all were fighting for positions. Ultimately, all of this is bigger than each one of us. And what we’re trying to do is going to require great leadership and sacrifice. And we have the kind of guys that understand that. And there will be some moments during the season when sacrifice is not always the easiest thing. It’s a great thing to say right now. And sacrifice is always the easiest when you’re not the one who has to sacrifice. It’s easier when somebody else is doing it.

“But, really, the magic happens when everybody can get to a place where you’re vulnerable and giving up something for the betterment of the team. We have a lot of firepower, have a lot of talent, have a lot of defensive versatility. There’s a lot of encouraging things about our roster makeup and our depth. And we fully intend on using all of that. How that’s going to play out right now, I don’t know, but I do like the possibilities.”

Despite Spoelstra’s busy and eventful start to training camp, he was appreciative of the offseason that was after the Heat finished just one win short of reaching the NBA Finals four months ago.

“It felt like a full offseason,” Spoelstra said. “Even us going to the Eastern Conference finals, based on what our last two summers were like, it felt like we had enough time to get away, decompress, and re-calibrate everything we experienced. I think everybody took advantage of that.”

Among other topics Spoelstra addressed Wednesday with a group of reporters in the Bahamas:

▪ Jimmy Butler has repeatedly said he has no interest in replacing Tucker as the Heat’s starting power forward, and it doesn’t sound like Spoelstra is going to force him to take on that role at the beginning of games.

“My thing with that is I would love to be able to, at some point in Jimmy’s career, just start him at all five positions,” Spoelstra said. “I’ve already started him at point guard. I’ve started him at his natural position, the three. I’ve started him at the two. I’ve definitely played him at the four, and he’ll play some four this year, not likely starting him there. But, man, that’d be cool to start him at the four at some point, whether it’s this year or the future. And then, for sure, start him at the five. That would be a great legacy.

“But Jimmy is a brilliant competitor and basketball player. He’ll make it work no matter what position we have him at. But playing him at his strengths is important to him and to me and to the team.”

▪ On where veteran point guard Kyle Lowry’s conditioning stands: “I love where Kyle is in camp right now. He’s ready to go. He’s leading, he’s in great shape. He’s in a great frame of mind and I think it’s important for all of us to have a little bit of grace and empathy for everything that Kyle went through last year. But that’s last year. The most important thing for me is we have our Hall of Fame quarterback.

“The most important thing is he can put it out on the wood and he keeps people involved. They love playing with him, he’s so unselfish and then he has a really innate feel of when to be assertive also and read the game and be aggressive and be a scoring point guard. He can do all of it. But if we didn’t have him, there would probably be a little bit more stress on me trying to figure out how to do all this. But he’s going to be really good this year.”

▪ After Heat president Pat Riley challenged center Bam Adebayo this offseason to take on more of a scoring role and Adebayo noted at media day on Monday that he has a goal of averaging 18 shot attempts per game this season, Spoelstra made it clear that the Heat “want Bam to be assertive and to be aggressive.”

“Where that ends up in field goal attempts, I don’t know,” Spoelstra said of Adebayo, who averaged 13 shot attempts per game last season. “Because I want to factor in the free-throw attempts. It keeps on moving up and finding more opportunities at the free-throw stripe like Jimmy, as Bam has increased that each year, that really helps our offense. All of it, though, is important. His assertiveness, his reading the game, his playmaking, him getting us organized at the center position.”

▪ Asked about finding Tucker’s replacement at power forward, Spoelstra said: “I feel like we have the versatility to go a lot of different ways. We can go big, we can go small, we can go fast. Tuck brought a very unique skill set defensively with his size and his IQ. But it may have to look a little bit different. That’s why we want to be open to the possibilities and different lineups, different fits for that.”

Caleb Martin, 27, is one of the leading candidates to take Tucker’s spot in the starting lineup.