Dwyane Wade may miss entire pre-season
The
Big Three of the Miami Heat may compete in their first regular-season game on Tuesday October 26 against the Boston Celtics, having played a grand total of three minutes together in an NBA game.
Dwyane Wade, one-third of the trio that includes LeBron James and Chris Bosh, is feeling better after tweaking his right hamstring minutes into Miami’s first pre-season game on Tuesday
October 5 against the Detroit Pistons. But Miami coach Erik Spoelstra said that Wade is unlikely to play for another week, meaning he could miss Miami’s four remaining pre-season games.
"Dwyane is making progress; he's virtually pain-free now to the touch," Spoelstra said. "It'll be day to day but we are not going to rush it. Hamstrings are a little bit tricky. We want
to make sure he gets the strength back up and we'll start conditioning next week."
Wade’s team-mates would obviously prefer to get in some real-game experience with a full roster before embarking on their much-anticipated and much-hyped regular season.
"We would definitely want [Wade] to get a pre-season game in," James said. "I'm not going to sit here and lie and say the 26th is the first day we want him back. We'd love for him to get
some in-game action – for us to get some in-game action as a full unit. So hopefully it happens."
Miami fans experienced a scare during last night’s pre-season game against CSKA Moscow in Miami. James, the two-time reigning MVP, left the game in the third quarter clutching his right
leg. While he wouldn’t return to the game, which the Heat won 96-85, pushing their pre-season record to 3-1, James described the injury as a cramp that was “very, very minor.” He will miss tonight’s game against the New Orleans Hornets but has said it was
the plan all along and was not related to his early exit last night. Spoelstra is approaching Wade’s injury with a high level of caution.
"Right now he probably feels great but he certainly doesn't have the strength or the conditioning in it," Spoelstra said. "He does [need game time] but what are we going to do? We're going
to try to rush the process? The most important thing is health. If you had to have a player out, Dwyane in this type of circumstance is probably the guy because of his IQ and his understanding of our system."
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