Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier revealed that he’s cleared to play, a massive step forward after he missed the end of the 2023-24 season with a neck injury.
“Doing great, feeling great. I’m cleared to play,” Rozier said on Tuesday. “I’ve been on the court. Shout out to the guys on the Miami Heat in getting me right. I’ve been lifting and doing everything else that I need to do. So I feel great.”
Miami traded for Rozier ahead of the trade deadline during the 2023-24 season, but he ended up missing the team’s entire run in the play-in tournament and the playoffs.
Rozier went out of the lineup with four games left in the regular season, and he ended up missing the rest of the campaign. However, it appears he’s going to ready for the 2024-25 season after being cleared so early in the offseason.
“Obviously we all know why I came here, to be a big help for the playoffs and just to try to get this team some life,” Rozier said. “It just sucks that I couldn’t play in the most important part of the season, and I had to watch the guys that I go to war with. So it was tough. … It was just nonstop thinking about me just wishing I was out there with my guys. That’s why I’m glad that I’m cleared and everything else will take care of itself when the time comes.”
A first-round pick back in the 2015 NBA Draft, Rozier also shared some insight into the decision to hold him out of the playoffs last season. He also shared that he could have been able to return for the second round of the playoffs had the Heat upset Boston in the first round.
“It was tough. It was tough just to look at myself in a neck brace,” Rozier said Tuesday. “… It was just a mutual agreement with me and the Heat that I wasn’t feeling the best and I wasn’t super comfortable. So we definitely sat it out, waited it out.
“I think that I would have played in the second round [of the playoffs] if we would have made it, but obviously that didn’t happen. But, like I said, the most important thing is I’m feeling better now and I’m in the facility every day just getting better and I’ll be ready for next season when training camp starts.”
Ultimately, Miami was going to have a hard time making any kind of playoff run with both Rozier and star Jimmy Butler sidelined in the first round of the playoffs.
The Heat did make the NBA Finals as a No. 8 seed in the 2022-23 season, but they had Butler for nearly all of that playoff run (he missed one game in the second round against the New York Knicks).
Miami is certainly hoping that Rozier can be an impact player going forward, especially since it has lost a few rotation players (Gabe Vincent, Max Strus and Caleb Martin) over the past two offseasons.
With the Heat and Charlotte Hornets in the 2023-24 campaign, Rozier averaged 19.8 points, 4.0 rebounds and 5.6 assists per game while shooting 44.3 percent from the field and 36.3 percent from 3-point range.