When the Miami Heat traded disgruntled star Jimmy Butler to the Golden State Warriors midway through last season, it put an end to a successful era that had evidently run its course. But it also marked the beginning of a new era, giving the Heat an opportunity to build around a younger roster that now includes six of its own first-round picks.
Heat center Kel’el Ware, who was taken by Miami with the 15th overall pick in last year’s draft, is a big part of this new era. It’s why Heat coaches and players continue to push Ware to reach his full potential as an athletic 7-footer with a 7-foot-5 wingspan and the ability to knock down threes.
“I’ve been on him, coach has been on him,” Heat veteran guard Norman Powell said when asked about Ware. “I’ve told him, I try to relate to them since I’m a little older than them. I always tell him there’s a meter. Think of it as like [the video game NBA 2K] back in the day. There should be a meter, a takeover meter in the game. And I told him, the bottom is G League and the top is generational. And I want him to be in that generational every single game because that’s the talent that he has.”
The latest person to implore Ware to be better was Heat icon and Prime Video NBA studio analyst Udonis Haslem, who texted Ware after the New York Knicks defeated the Heat in New York on Friday behind 20 offensive rebounds.
“Immediately after the game, I immediately texted Kel’el and I said, ‘Get all the film with [Knicks center] Mitchell Robinson in the game, watch all the film, every offensive rebound he got on you, how he positioned himself early and pushed you under the basket,” Haslem said during Prime Video’s NBA coverage Friday. “You can’t rebound if the ball is not in front of you. You have to have the ball in front of you if you want to rebound.”
Ware, 21, accepted the challenge and was much better in Monday night’s 115-113 bounce-back win over the Knicks at Kaseya Center.
Making his sixth straight start at center in place of the sidelined Bam Adebayo, Ware totaled 16 points on 7-of-9 shooting from the field and 1-of-1 shooting from three-point range, 14 rebounds, one assist, one steal and three blocks in 31 minutes in Monday’s win over the Knicks. He also posted a team-best plus/minus of plus 8.
Those are impressive numbers, but it’s the effort and assertiveness on both ends of the court that Heat coach Erik Spoelstra was most encouraged by on Monday.
Just in the final minutes of the contest, Ware used his shoulder to muscle through Knicks center Karl-Anthony Towns on his way to an and-one layup with 4:05 left in the fourth quarter, blocked a layup attempt by Towns that would have tied the game with 13.2 seconds to play, and then managed to contest all three shots during the Knicks’ empty final possession of the game that clinched the two-point win for the Heat.
“You just felt the multiple efforts,” Spoelstra said, with the Heat set to take on Butler and the Warriors on Wednesday at Kaseya Center (7:30 p.m., FanDuel Sports Network Sun). “The rebounding was very intentional. And the multiple efforts, I loved that drive he had with four minutes to go. It was kind of a loose ball and he caught it on the baseline. It could have been one of those flip shots, but he wanted to make sure that this thing was going to the rim and got the and-one. That showed me there’s growth in time score, context, swing moments.
“But also some of the defense that he had on one of the best scores in this game [in Towns]. I’m not talking about necessarily getting stops. It’s just you have to negotiate through a lot of different things, pick-and-roll basketball, flares, a guy who knows how to draw fouls and is crafty. And then when he’s not on him, hey, you got to patrol the paint and make sure that you’re protecting the rim for us. So there are a lot of different kinds of roles that he had to do throughout the course of the game.”
Ware entered Monday’s game with an approach to play bigger and stronger after Robinson grabbed a game-high eight offensive rebounds in Friday’s matchup. On Monday, Ware finished with a game-high six offensive rebounds.
“Just playing with more force, playing with more aggression,” Ware said of his approach on Monday. “Just showing that it’s not an easy push down there.”
While the ups and downs that come with being a young NBA player will continue for Ware, he has shown some game-to-game consistency during this stretch of increased playing time with Adebayo unavailable because of a toe injury. Ware has grabbed double-digit rebounds in five straight games and has recorded four straight double-doubles.
Ware has averaged 11.2 points, 9.6 rebounds and 1.5 blocks per game while shooting 54.4 percent from the field and 14 of 36 (38.9%) from three-point range through the first 14 games of his second NBA season after being selected for NBA All-Rookie Second Team last season.
“He’s been great, especially these last few games, being able to start and get an opportunity,” Powell said of Ware. “And it’s not always going to be perfect. It’s not always going to be perfect where he’s hitting every shot and everything like that. But those hustle plays, those energy plays, those second and third opportunities, hustling for the ball, offensive rebounds and things like that, it’s what we need. We feed off that. And we saw that [Monday].
“I think he’s doing a good job. There are going to be ups and downs. But as long as he stays mentally tough and fighting through the adversity, it’s going to be good because we need him.”
During Spoelstra’s pregame media session on Monday, he essentially predicted Ware would have a productive night.
“Kel’el has been stacking up good days,” said Spoelstra, who has publicly challenged Ware’s professionalism and play multiple times in recent months. “It doesn’t mean it’s going to guarantee you play well. But I’m encouraged. My experience says you keep on stacking up those days, eventually there’s a breakthrough.”
Whether Monday’s impactful effort and this string of double-double stat lines represent a breakthrough moment for Ware remains to be seen. But one thing is for sure, the message that Haslem, Spoelstra and others are trying to send Ware through their public challenges is being delivered.
“He’s one of the main people that hangs his hat on rebounding,” Ware said of Haslem. “So hearing that from him and hearing that he wants me to be better at that, it’s like I would say it’s more motivation for me to go and pursue them more, especially working on my boxing out more and just getting better at that.”
Anthony Chiang covers the Miami Heat for the Miami Herald. He attended the University of Florida and was born and raised in Miami.