Kel’el Ware‘s underwhelming Summer League performance drew a stern reaction from head coach Erik Spoelstra, writes Anthony Chiang of The Miami Herald. Ware took over as the Heat’s starting center midway through last season and earned second-team All-Rookie honors. The organization values him highly enough that he wasn’t included in its offer for Kevin Durant, but there’s disappointment in how he has looked this summer.
“A big part of this is he has to really embrace and improve his professionalism, his consistency, his approach every single day,” Spoelstra said. “He has to get better with that. It’s learning how to become a pro. I understand that he was 20 last year and he’s 21. But we have bigger expectations. It’s not your normal growth and growing pains of a young player learning how to become a pro. But that’s what this summer is about. Learning how to become a pro, learning how to be consistent every single day.
“The talent is there. The professionalism and consistency has to improve, and it is. Our standards are not going to change and our expectations and how fast we want that to improve for him are not going to change. But he has to get better at it, he has to take ownership of it.”
Through two games in the California Classic and one in Las Vegas, Ware is averaging 12 points, 5.3 rebounds and 1.7 blocks per game while shooting 39.4% from the field and connecting on just 1 of 10 three-point attempts. He posted a team worst plus-minus rating of minus-21 in Friday’s loss to Atlanta.
Ware acknowledged to Chiang that he needs “to do better with definitely boxing out, a little bit more defensive end and just finishing the ball.”
There’s more on the Heat:
- Andrew Wiggins has been linked to the Lakers in trade rumors, but Spoelstra considers him to be an important part of the rotation for the upcoming season, Chiang tweets. A source tells Barry Jackson of The Miami Herald (Twitter link) that none of the offers Miami received for Wiggins were tempting. “We got Wiggins to get Wiggins,” the source said, referring to the February trade with Golden State. “He’s a good player. He’s been a big part of winning teams.”
- After two rough games in California, Kasparas Jakucionis displayed his potential with 24 points in his Las Vegas debut, Chiang adds in a separate story. However, the No. 20 overall pick was disappointed with other parts of his game on Friday. “Basketball is a lot more than just shooting,” he said. “It felt good, yeah. But eventually we still lost. I didn’t do a great job on the other side like rebounding, getting out on transition defense. So yeah, but I definitely felt better with the shot.”
- Five months after sending Jimmy Butler to Golden State, the trade seems more like a win than it did in February, observes Ira Winderman of The Sun-Sentinel. Drafting Jakucionis with the pick they got from the Warriors and using Kyle Anderson, who was also part of the deal, to obtain Norman Powell have helped to balance the scales, according to Winderman.