Concern Over Wade's Health

Recently Pat Riley revealed to us the extremity of the shoulder injury Dwyane Wade suffered last season. Apparently, it was a rare reverse dislocation that caused some nerve damage. This is definitely more severe than we had previously been made aware of. In addition, Wade has soreness and bruising in his other shoulder, soreness in his knee, a jammed finger, and an injured shin.

Basically, Wade is the walking wounded. Remarkably, he still goes out there for 40 minutes and produces at an all-world level. However, now that the season is lost and a lottery pick is inevitable, I would consider limiting Wade's minutes to an extent. The problem is that this would be a ripoff to the season ticket holders who paid good money to see a competitive ballclub and now whose only consolation is to get to watch Dwyane Wade in his prime. That's why you can't shut him down entirely.

He does need to get rest though. This team isn't crawling back into the playoffs, and if they do, they won't make it very far. There's no point in risking the future of this team on a lost season. What Riley needs to do is give Wade 30 minutes tops a game, with an occasional night off on the 2nd game of a back-to-back. Put Daequan Cook in at point guard as much as possible to see if there can potentially be some chemistry there with Wade and Cook in the backcourt. Both play the 2, so unless one were to move over to the point, we will only see Cook coming off the bench his entire career. That would be a tremendous waste.

Keep playing Dorell and Barron. Let Quinn run the show. Might as well. If you can grab a solid player for one of the expiring contracts, do it. Likewise, if someone wants Haslem and is offering expiring contracts, make them take Blount as well and pull the trigger. Make sure you get cap space as soon as possible and make use of the current expiring contracts you have now to acquire unwanted talent that may be of use for the next few years here.