UnaWare! :o

Amid underwhelming summer league, Heat’s Spoelstra says Ware must ‘improve his professionalism’  👀

Really? I never heard that as a critique! I am shocked.

“A big part of this is he has to really embrace and improve his professionalism, his consistency, his approach every single day,” Spoelstra said sternly. “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.”

And Spoelstra was stern. I watched it. He paused for one second after saying "professionalism" the first time. He repeatedly slapped one hand into his othet to emphasize. Spoelstra is not happy with Ware right now. Others besides Anthony Chiang above also noticed.

Erik Spoelstra’s attitude suggests he doesn’t want Kel’el Ware at Miami Heat

Aaditya Krishnamurthy

...it’s hard to remember Spoelstra being this hard on similarly promising Heat prospects like Bam Adebayo, Tyler Herro, or even Jaime Jaquez Jr.

It is. FiveReasonsSports agrees:

Five Reasons Sports 

@5ReasonsSports

This was Erik Spoelstra on Kel’el Ware Rare direct comments about a player.

...

More Krishnamurthy:

Could Spoelstra be the one holdout within the Heat organization when it comes to Ware? There have been no reports about Spoelstra having any negative feelings towards the young center.

Gautam Varier:

It's quite alarming... that Spoelstra felt the need to call out the big man in this manner.