Miami Heat coach Erik Spoelstra was tough on center Kel’el Ware after the team’s loss to the Boston Celtics on Thursday. Ware had been benched for the second half of that game due to his inconsistent play. That led Spoelstra to say that second-year big man was “stacking days in the wrong direction”.
Before Saturday’s victory over the Oklahoma City Thunder, Spoelstra reaffirmed the Heat are committed to developing Ware.
“I didn’t articulate that in a great way and that wasn’t fair to Kel’el,” Spoelstra said. “I wasn’t even frustrated. So, what I’ll say is I’m fully invested in and invigorated about the opportunity to develop Kel’el, and our staff feels the same way. We’re going to give him everything we have to make sure he becomes the player that he wants to become, that we need him to become.”
For his part, Ware said he thinks that Spoelstra’s comments were “crazy”, but that he’s focused on the things he can control.
“That’s a question you got to ask (Spoelstra),” Ware said when asked what he has to do to earn more playing time. “Like I said, I’ve learned it is what it is. Control the controllables. I don’t know what my minutes will be.”
Wared added that he’s trying to give consistent effort when he plays, while noting that changing minutes and role are difficult to adjust to.
“I try to,” Ware said about playing with full effort. “With the minutes I get, like I said, it’s sort of hard to go out there when you really don’t know what your role is. It changes from one thing to the next. So I’m just trying to go out there and try to do what I was doing eight weeks ago when I had those minutes with the little minutes I get now.”