Udonis Haslem is nearing the end of his NBA career with just one regular season game left on the schedule for the Miami Heat this campaign.
Haslem has already made it clear that the current season will be his last in the NBA, and while he has voiced frustration with the Heat’s struggles this season, he is now looking back on things with a much wider lens.
In the words of the man himself, he couldn’t have scripted his NBA career any better than how it has actually turned out.
“I couldn’t have scripted it any better,” said Haslem. “There’s no way I envisioned anything even close to this. But I’ve always identified as a man who’s had something to prove. I’ve always identified as a guy who had to work 10 times as hard just to get a seat at the table. I think just that work ethic, that mind-set, that drive has brought me to this point in my life and my career. Just continuing to be like that has brought me here.”
The University of Florida product will be turning 43 years old in just over two months from now, and by that time, it seems highly likely that the Heat’s season will already be over.
In fact, the only way in which the Heat will still be playing basketball at that point will be if the team ends up beating the odds and advancing all the way to the 2023 NBA Finals, which is scheduled to start on June 1.
With one game left in the regular season, the Heat are locked in to compete in the play-in tournament. They’ll have to win at least one game in that quick preamble to earn a spot in the playoff bracket.
From there, the job won’t get much easier. They’ll likely lack home-court advantage in every playoff series going forward.
Still, it cannot be ignored that a similarly structured Heat roster has advanced to the Eastern Conference Finals twice in the last three years and NBA Finals one time in that same time frame.
Haslem’s leadership is surely one of the many reasons behind that playoff success. Though the three-time champion doesn’t see the court often these days, his leadership is an incredibly valuable asset to the team.
It’ll be interesting to see if Heat head coach Erik Spoelstra decides to send Haslem in for one more regular season game in the team’s matchup against the Orlando Magic on Sunday.
