Miami Heat big man Udonis Haslem played his final NBA regular season game on Sunday, and he has received an outpouring of love from his current and former teammates.
One of those former teammates was LeBron James, who gave the veteran a shoutout via social media.
Haslem has played 20 seasons in the NBA, and his story is all the more impressive considering he went undrafted in 2002 out of the University of Florida.
A native of Miami, he has gotten to play his entire NBA career with the Heat, which has made him a very lucky man, and he has been there and done that through multiple eras for the franchise.
He started out when a rookie named Dwyane Wade teamed up with Caron Butler and Lamar Odom to lead Miami to the second round of the playoffs, and he was a key role player in its starting lineup when it won its first NBA championship in 2006.
Of course, Haslem played four seasons with James, and the Heat reached the NBA Finals in each of those seasons while winning back-to-back world titles in 2012 and 2013.
The big man’s playing time and production have gradually declined over the years to the point where he has seldom gotten onto the court for game action over the last several years. However, his leadership has been invaluable, and his words have carried tremendous weight, as many have considered him an unofficial assistant coach in recent years.
On Sunday, Haslem gave Heat fans a blast from the past when he came off the bench and scored a game-high 24 points on 9-of-17 overall shooting and 3-of-7 from 3-point range in the team’s 123-110 win.
It will move on to the play-in tournament where it will face Trae Young and the Atlanta Hawks. A win against them would give it the seventh seed in the Eastern Conference playoffs and a first-round matchup against the Boston Celtics, the team that narrowly knocked it out of the Eastern Conference Finals last year.
