Thursday, June 27, 2024

Kel’el Ware

I’m a know-it-all, I accept that. I’m self-named Mr. Wrong, Always Certain. Fine. But I also took one look at about five minutes of Justise Winslow at Duke and knew he couldn’t play in the NBA. I saw about five mins of Jaime Jaquez Jr in the summer league at my pizza joint and pronounced him ready for the NBA, a great fit for this org. and a potential all-star. Occasionally idiot bloggers are right. 

Kel’el Ware will start his short, unhappy life as a pro with the Sioux Falls “Skyforce”. Maybe he gets a call up his first year or maybe his “motor” is so meager that he stays there. Pat Riley will push Spoelstra to bring him up, as he did with Nikola Jovic, as he did, convincing no one, but arguing publicly that Winslow could play point for the “Heat”. Riley doesn’t admit mistakes but he made a huge one tonight. He’ll force the team to stay with Ware until the last dog dies. Which it will. It was a wasted first round draft pick, as Winslow was, and eventually Riley will have to admit it and jettison Ware. The “Heat” are no better tonight, on a night when OG Anunoby re-upped with the “Knicks”, the day after New York acquired Mikal Bridges. We got no better, in fact the gulf between us and the top, Boston, New York, Milwaukee, Philadelphia, and turbo-charged Indiana, is now so wide that it is an ocean not a gulf. 

Tonight’s pick smacks of Hail Mary desperation, which the “Heat” have never been accused of. But this is now and for the foreseeable future the Miami 45’s unless a mega-trade is made. This is a gloomy night for the once glamorous Miami basketball franchise…Of course, I’m often wrong.