MIAMI — The official listing on Wednesday afternoon of the Heat’s Thursday charter to flight to Boston was at 2:40 p.m., according to Flight Aware. The planned departure time is 3:30 p.m. — as in a half hour after Thursday’s 3 p.m. NBA trade deadline.
Plenty remains up in the air ahead of the deadline, which is why the Heat won’t be in the air until after the expiration.
Amid the swirl around them, including in their own division, the Heat remained as of Wednesday afternoon in a holding pattern, linked to both Milwaukee Bucks forward Giannis Antetokounmpo and Memphis Grizzlies guard Ja Morant.
Amid that holding pattern, the league remained active amid the 24-hour countdown, including Heat division rivals Washington and Charlotte, with the Wizards acquiring Anthony Davis from the Dallas Mavericks and the Hornets adding Coby White from the Chicago Bulls.
Against that backdrop, the Heat are scheduled to return to practice Thursday at Kaseya Center, before a flight that could be either short on bodies or short on change.
For those involved, it is an annual waiting game of uncertainty.
“Control what you can control,” Heat captain and center Bam Adebayo said of those closing hours of uncertainty. “That’s the thing that’s tough, because it’s easier said than done.
“And you try to ease guys’ minds by just, like I tell them, winning makes it easier to go to the trade deadline or whatever may happen. It makes it easier for everybody.”
That hasn’t been the case for the Heat, with ugly losses in two of their past three games, including 127-115 on Tuesday night to the Atlanta Hawks at Kaseya Center.
Next up is a two-game trip against the Celtics on Friday night and the Wizards on Super Bowl Sunday afternoon. Both of those teams already have been in action on the trade market, with the Celtics adding center Nikola Vucevic from the Chicago Bulls and the Wizards previously acquiring Trae Young from the Hawks.
A year ago, the Heat underwent a major remodel at the deadline, trading Jimmy Butler to the Golden State Warriors in the deadline deal that brought in Andrew Wiggins, Kyle Anderson and Davion Mitchell.
That proved to be a lesson in being different not necessarily being better, with that revised cast proceeding to move on to a 10-game losing streak and eventually the No. 10 Eastern Conference seed in the play-in round.
This time, the Heat stand 27-25 at the deadline.
“So for us, we got until Thursday,” Adebayo said of the deadline waiting game. “See what happens but control what you can control. You can’t control what happens up there.”
“Up there” as in the front office, where Pat Riley, Andy Elisburg and Adam Simon, among others, will have to decide whether to live in the moment, reset the franchise’s future, or ride this out until the offseason, with the Heat holding their own selection in the first round of June’s NBA draft.
As it is, the Heat have been featuring altered lineups, with Tyler Herro and Andrew Wiggins missing Tuesday night’s loss due to injuries and All-Star guard Norman Powell due to personal reasons, expected to return to practice Thursday.
So based on the timing of what does — or does not — happen at the deadline, it could be an ongoing pattern of mix and match for coach Erik Spoelstra and the Heat.
“It’s the league. It’s not exclusive to us,” Spoelstra said of the game-to-game uncertainty with lineups. “I know probably people think, ‘Oh, it’s just the Miami Heat. We have people out. You can’t expect who’s going to play or who’s not.’ Watch the National Basketball Association. You have no idea who’s going to play on a given night. You play a team one night. The next time you play them or you watch them on TV and you’re prepping for them, by the time they get to you, there’s going to be a couple of different guys out.
“You have to learn how to handle that.”
