Heat Notes: Injury Updates, Trade Assets, Lowry

Even with half the rotation listed on the injury report, there was good news for the Heat as they gathered today for their final practice before leaving on a five-game West Coast trip, writes Anthony Chiang of The Miami Herald. Jimmy Butler, who has missed three straight games with a strained left calf, and Josh Richardson, who was unavailable Monday due to lower back discomfort, were both partial participants in practice. Haywood Highsmith, who sat out Monday due to illness, was able to participate fully.

“I feel much better now,” Highsmith said. “Still trying to catch my wind. Get my breathing down and my chest down. Trying to get up and down, conditioning and stuff, but I feel much better. I think I lost some pounds from not eating and sweating a lot. But I’m good now.”

Miami also got an encouraging update on Caleb Martin, who sprained his ankle in the first quarter Monday and was ruled out for the rest of the game. Martin didn’t practice today and it’s not certain if he’ll be able to play during the trip, but he appears to have avoided a major injury.

“I’m feeling a lot better than expected,” he said. “… X-ray came back clean. So everything, for the most part, is good. Just being smart and taking it day by day. There’s some swelling and bruising, so just working with that.”

There’s more on the Heat:

• Miami seems to be mentioned as a potential destination for every star who becomes available, but Heat players are confident that the current roster can compete for a title if there’s not a major addition before the trade deadline, per Joe Vardon of The Athletic. The organization didn’t land Damian Lillard, who was rumored to be headed to Miami all summer, and it lost Gabe Vincent and Max Strus from last season’s NBA Finals team, but it has remained competitive, sitting at fifth place in the East at 18-12. Vardon points out that the Heat still have plenty of draft assets and young talent on hand to make a run at any of the available players in Chicago or Toronto or even Donovan Mitchell if Cleveland decides to part with him.
• Among the reasons for the Heat’s success is point guard Kyle Lowry, who continues to be productive at age 37, Vardon adds. Lowry is starting and averaging 29.3 minutes per game during his 18th NBA season, and he made an impression on his former coach in Monday’s contest against Philadelphia. “When the ball goes up, man, deep down inside, he just competes,” said Nick Nurse, who spent several years with Lowry in Toronto. “I can’t tell you the amount of times that we talked about ‘We’re going to take you out here, we’re going to play you this amount of minutes,’ … and when the ball went up and the game got tough and we needed him out there, he wanted to be out there. He’d crash right through all those plans and keep on playing and keep making plays.”
• The Heat also have a talented young core in place that can keep the franchise competitive after veterans like Lowry and Butler are gone, observes Ira Winderman of The Sun-Sentinel, who envisions a future built around Bam Adebayo, Tyler Herro and Jaime Jaquez.