The postponement of the Miami Heat’s Wednesday night road game against the San Antonio Spurs evoked the ire of an NBA All-Star, who viewed the move as part of a double standard.
The Heat’s game at the AT&T Center was postponed when the Heat were unable to meet the NBA requirement of a minimum of eight players in uniform, with six players in heath-and-safety protocols and six sidelined by injury.
To Atlanta Hawks guard Trae Young, it is no different than what his team has been forced to patch together during a rough patch of its own.
“I was just confused,” Young said in reaction to the Heat postponement. “We had like four guys fly in [Tuesday] night just to make the roster and play. We were able to find a way.”
The Heat made a similar attempt, but with the game in San Antonio coming on the second night of a back-to-back set that opened with Tuesday night’s victory over the Washington Wizards at FTX Arena, timing elements and pandemic protocols got in the way.
“I don’t know if it’s on the league or on our part to complain and be forceful with what’s going on,” Young said. “Other teams have gotten games postponed and are waiting on guys to get back.
“We have, really, three guys who play big minutes for our team. When you include [Skylar Mays], we have four guys. It’s kind of crazy.”
With Young among those who have been in protocols, the Hawks are 3-7 in their last 10 games.
The Hawks last season finished one game ahead of the Heat, securing the No. 5 Eastern Conference playoff seed and defeating the New York Knicks in the first round. The Heat, at No. 6, were swept in the first round by the Milwaukee Bucks.
The Heat last season lamented a pair of road losses to the Philadelphia 76ers, when they had only seven healthy players and an ailing Tyler Herro, with victories in either game potentially allowing them to finish ahead of the Hawks.
Heat-Spurs was the 10th postponement this season, with the league emphasizing to teams to take whatever steps are necessary to add players and create playable rosters. The contracts of all emergency additions count neither against the salary cap or luxury tax.
Veteran agreement
In addition to the neophytes the Heat have added, G League players Haywood Highsmith, Kyle Guy and Aric Holman, the team also plans to sign NBA veteran Nik Stauskas to a similar emergency 10-day contract.
Stauskas, 28, has appeared in 335 regular-season games with the Sacramento Kings, Philadelphia 76ers, Brooklyn Nets, Portland Trail Blazers and Cleveland Cavaliers.
The No. 8 pick in the 2014 NBA draft out of Michigan by the Kings, Stauskas last played in the NBA in 2019. He since has played in Spain and the G League.
The 6-foot-6 wing had attempted to sign last week with the Toronto Raptors, but protocols got in the way of that agreement.
A career .353 3-point shooter, Stauskas might be best known for acquiring the nickname “Sauce Castillo” due to a captioning error on an arena scoreboard. Boosted by social media, it took off from there, with the Kings featuring a “Sauce Castillo Night” while he played in Sacramento, which featured a hot-sauce giveaway.
