MIAMI — Kyle Lowry wore a big green Philadelphia Eagles hat Monday night. The hat was so huge that if he had stepped out into the warm rain falling outside the Miami Heat’s arena, his clothes would not have taken a drop.
Lowry had earned the freedom to wear such a ridiculous hat, which mushroomed maybe a foot over his forehead and outward to nearly his shoulders. At age 37 and in his 18th NBA season, Lowry is tied for second on the team with 28 games played and is third in total minutes at 819 (out of a possible 1,440).
Also, both his Heat and his Eagles won their Christmas games on Monday, so why not celebrate with a festive, gaudy, felt cap?
As Lowry exited the Heat locker room, he strolled past Tyler Herro, who was about to answer a question about beating the Philadelphia 76ers 119-113 while missing four rotation players, including star Jimmy Butler. Before Herro could get in a word, Lowry bellowed in a deep, voice-over-like voice, as though he was James Earl Jones: “We have enough.”
“Like Kyle said, we do have enough, no matter who’s playing and who’s sitting,” Herro said. “As you’ve seen lately, we’ve been winning games. But in order to (get to) our ultimate goal of winning a championship, we’ll obviously need everybody.”
It’s another typical regular season on South Beach. The Heat followed last season’s NBA Finals berth and gentleman’s sweep by the Denver Nuggets by being a major runner on the NBA’s summer rumor mill. When the wheels stopped turning, the Heat didn’t have Damian Lillard, and even beyond that, two key role players (Gabe Vincent, Max Strus) were gone. And of course, Miami made good on what it did have (the 18th pick of the NBA Draft) and turned it into Jaime Jaquez Jr., who enjoyed one of the best Christmas games ever by a rookie. The Heat are still getting major contributions out of Lowry and Kevin Love, who had been written off in Cleveland in the middle of last season. And Bam Adebayo and Butler remain two of the top players in the league at their positions.
But the NBA is a league in which the attention goes to the super teams, to the rosters with multiple headliners with reigning MVPs and front offices that succeeded in making those big splashes in free agency and with trades (like Boston and Milwaukee in the East, which both upgraded backcourts and in the Celtics’ case also added Kristaps Porziņģis). The Heat added Josh Richardson to their mix, a fine player but not at the level of Lillard, James Harden, Jrue Holiday or Porziņģis.
Miami also has the assets to take a big swing yet with arguably enough first-round picks and intriguing players (like, say, Herro) to make a run at Donovan Mitchell should he be available or at talented players in Chicago or Toronto.
