WaddupDoe!
Steez.
why not?He can't play every game breh
dude is still young as hell & can use all the playing time he can get. Spo better not be on his bullshyt. i saw a tweet that Spo didnt play Ennis to play Granger more.
The Trophies Remain, The King Never L3ft #HeatLifer: Miami Heat 2014-15 Season Thread
- Thread starter HiphopRelated
- Start date
dude is still young as hell & can use all the playing time he can get. Spo better not be on his bullshyt. i saw a tweet that Spo didnt play Ennis to play Granger more.
WaddupDoe!
Steez.
found flash highlights...
the dunk attempt.......yea...when the season rolls on and he's in full game shape...get out the fukkin way or u getting banged on....
when i saw him attempt that dunk my damn soul almost left my body.
Rio actually played really good after him & bev was going at it.
found flash highlights...
the dunk attempt....
this is beautiful 
Dwyane Wade's unmatched 'gravity'
Editor's note: For more information on the concept of gravity, click here.
Dwyane Wade has been great at many things on the basketball court. But one skill has always escaped him: 3-point shooting.
This isn't breaking news to anyone who has followed his tenure in the NBA. Wade is a career 29 percent 3-point shooter, a sorry figure that places him 311th among the 315 players in NBA history who have shot at least 1,000 3-pointers.
But Wade has adjusted. Starting in the lockout-shortened 2011-12 season, Wade kicked the habit for the most part and generally expelled the 3-point shot from his regular jump-shooting diet. In 2013-14, Wade's propensity for shooting (and making) the 3 hit a career nadir; he took only 32 trifectas and made only nine during the entire regular season. Five years ago, he might have stumbled into making nine treys in a single week. Those days are long gone.
But here's the crazy thing about all that: Opposing defenses still glued themselves to Wade off the ball like he's the next Steve Kerr.
This isn't just a theory; there is quantifiable evidence of this phenomenon. According to exclusive STATS LLC data provided to ESPN Insider from cutting-edge SportVU cameras that track the movement of the ball and every player last season, defenses stuck to Wade on the perimeter as if he were an elite 3-point shooter.
The question is, why?
During one of last week's practices, Wade was on the Miami Heat's practice court upstairs at AmericanAirlines Arena. The team has been struggling to find its identity in the wake ofLeBron James' sudden departure this summer, and Wade had just wrapped up a long, arduous practice meticulously going over coach Erik Spoelstra's defensive principles. Wade and his teammates are tired, and the general mood feels grim after a string of hard losses.
But in this moment, Wade is laughing. He's giggling because for so long he thought he was going crazy, seeing something on the court that had to be a figment of his imagination. Opposing defenses just won't leave him alone off the ball. To him, this didn't make any sense. He's not a 3-point shooter.
"Lately, I've been seeing everybody start doing this more," Wade said as he turned his back pretending to be a defender gluing himself to a perimeter shooter. "And I'm just like, 'Damn, did I just start shooting 3s and I didn't know about it?'"
To Wade's elation, the data from SportVU cameras corroborated his story. He wasn't seeing things; defenses were really playing him that way.
What Wade was describing was the dynamic of a floor-spacer who spreads the defense thin, a characteristic almost exclusively held by 3-point sharpshooters. Ask an NBA coach to name the best floor-spacers in the league and chances are you'll hear names like Kyle Korver, Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson. You do not leave these guys on the perimeter and live to tell about it. In the domain of floor-spacing, shooters rule the day.
Wade, however, is the quirk in the system. The statisticians at STATS LLC have crunched the SportVU data to come up with two advanced metrics which they've called "gravity score" and "distraction score." By tracking how the defense shifts at every instance in the game, gravity score attempts to quantify how much defensive attention a player receives when he's off the ball. In other words, a player's gravitational pull on the opposing defense.
Distraction score takes this one step further and quantifies how much a player's defender is willing to help off him to stop the ball handler. If a lights-out shooter is standing in the corner, his defender will rarely leave him to stop a penetrating point guard. Coaches have noticed this, but SportVU quantifies it, through comprehensive optical tracking and innovative algorithms.
I wanted to examine which players performed strongly in both metrics so I could identify the NBA's true floor-spacers. So I blended the two metrics together to create a composite metric, which I've called "respect rating."
Now, this is where it gets interesting. Flipping through the leaders in respect rating is like glancing at a list of 3-point contest candidates. There's Kevin Durant. Predictably, Korver's name shows up high on the list. So do Curry and Thompson. Ray Allen. J.J. Redikk. You name the sharpshooter ... he's there.
But oddly enough, so is Wade. He is the anomaly, the lone floor-spacer who ignores 3s altogether.
Courtesy of Tom HaberstrohThe newly created "respect rating" metric.
As illustrated above, Wade converted 0.2 3-pointers every 36 minutes on the court last season, which is remarkably low for someone ranked in the top 25 of respect rating. On average, the other 24 players made far more trifectas than Wade, about 2.2 3s every 36 minutes. Wade was unique in this sense. In fact, no wing player with fewer than 0.5 3-pointers every 36 minutes even cracked the top 100 in respect rating. Tyreke Evans, Shaun Livingstonand Tony Allen? All nowhere near the upper echelon.
But then there's Wade.
"I don't think anybody has ever called me that term -- a floor-spacer -- before," Wade says. "But honestly I've always known that I'm a floor-spacer, just in a different way."
So what makes Wade different? Why do defenses treat Wade like he's an elite 3-point shooter even though he's not?
"They're always up on me," Wade says. "I always wonder why."
The answer to this riddle is not simply that Wade scores a lot of points. It's how he gets his points that matters. More specifically, he's a deadly off-ball threat not because he's a 3-point shooter, but because he's a lethal cutter.
The mystery starts to reveal itself when you look at the Synergy numbers. Since losing the 2011 Finals, Wade says he has dedicated himself to cutting off the ball more for easy buckets. Not surprisingly, the data backs this up. According to Synergy's video tracking, Wade has accumulated 497 points on cuts off the ball, which is 100 more points than anyone else in the league over that time.
Courtesy of Tom Haberstroh
What's clear is that Wade is indeed a floor-spacer, but he does it by cutting, not shooting.
And SportVU has detected that defenses are programming against it. Through their algorithms, SportVU has found that Wade pulls his defender away from the ball handler. Last season, Wade ranked 21st in the league in respect rating, which, interestingly enough, places him even higher than James. Part of the reason: James is not quite the same cutter off the ball as Wade.
"I think once I became a dynamic cutter, then it became a part of the scouting report," Wade says. "If you turn your head and go help ...boom, I'm cutting backdoor."
On the practice floor, Wade put on an impromptu demonstration all by himself. He acted like a coach, moving around the perimeter and angling himself in different ways to demonstrate how defenses used to guard him compared to how they've guarded him more recently. Before he developed his off-ball cutting game, his defender used to shade off of him on the perimeter, sinking into the paint and keeping a close eye on the ball. "Now," Wade shouted as he slid from the paint to the 3-point arc, "they will guard me like this."
Wade's gravitational pull has gotten so impactful that he began to use it against his opposition.
AP Photo/Lynne SladkySince the start of the 2011-12 season, Dwyane Wade leads the NBA in points off cutters by a massive margin.
"There have been a lot of times where I tell my teammates, 'Just drive on my side! They're not leaving me!'" Wade said, laughing.
Wade then backtracked a bit.
"Well, it's not like 'Ray Allen not leaving me,'" he says, "but it's my version of not leaving me."
Indeed, Allen placed higher than Wade in respect rating last season. Evidently, Wade's remarkable cutting abilities have not gone unnoticed. Heat.com writer Couper Moorhead has chronicled Wade's now-you-see-me-now-you-don't routine, dubbing it "ghost cuts." Last season, Wade scored 147 points on 97 plays ending in a cut, which translates to a ridiculously good payoff of 1.52 points per play. Only Dwight Howard was more efficient. By comparison, leaving Allen open for a catch-and-shoot play last season -- a defensive cardinal sin -- resulted in a 1.2-point average payoff. Wade's move was more deadly.
Wade stood in the corner and described how he works his magic. He preys on his defender as soon as he drifts away and loses focus.
"It's a feeling, but I'm watching my guy's eyes," Wade said. "I'm looking at the ball and where it's going, because sometimes my job is to run to the top of the key, but if I see he's out of position and he's just looking [toward the ball] ..."
Wade darted to the basket.
"... I'm gone."
But that was then, this is now. Can Wade be effective on cuts without James around anymore?
This is the elephant in the room. James is a passing virtuoso who can see above the defenses like he's observing from an air traffic control tower. Wade was always one pass away, and no player assisted Wade's field goals more than James last season.
It remains to be seen whether teams will be willing to pack the paint more when Wade is off the ball. Why respect his cutting game so much if James isn't around to deliver the pass? It turns out Wade would welcome the extra breathing room.
"That'd be great, fine by me," Wade says. "It'd give me a chance to get my 3 off."
Uh-oh. The career 29 percent 3-point shooter wants to shoot more 3s? Teams may be rooting for that counterpunch.
Wade has indeed taken more 3-pointers this preseason. He's shot 2.7 3-pointers every 36 minutes thus far in five games, which would be his highest rate since 2009-10. He made just 30 percent from deep that season.
"It's funny," he says, "because in the last couple games, I've hit a couple 3s and the guys who are guarding me have looked at me like, 'What?'"
The look typically comes from younger players who only know the James-era Wade.
"Y'all forgot that I did shoot 3s," Wade says. "Last three years I just haven't done it."
And that discipline worked in the Heat's favor. Oftentimes, there were better shots available thanks to James' presence. But now the exchange rate has been disrupted with James gone.
The Heat may have lost James' passing abilities, but they hope that free-agent signee Josh McRoberts can fill some of the void. McRoberts, who has missed the preseason with a toe injury, averaged 4.5 assists per game last season in Charlotte, which marks one of the highest rates in the league among big men. And much of those went to Gerald Henderson and Michael Kidd-Gilchrist, two players who like to cut off the ball, like Wade.
This introduces an interesting wrinkle for Wade's season, and really the rest of his NBA career. Will he need to start shooting 3-pointers to maintain his gravitational pull as he ages? Or has the attention derived from his cutting game made the 3-pointer irrelevant?
Nonetheless, get ready for more 3-pointers from Wade.
"I'm going to shoot 'em more," Wade says, which sounds a little like a warning than a prediction. "It is what it is."
You have our full attention, Dwyane. Let's see how long it lasts.
- Tom Haberstroh [ARCHIVE]
-
- ESPN Insider | October 22, 2014
Editor's note: For more information on the concept of gravity, click here.
Dwyane Wade has been great at many things on the basketball court. But one skill has always escaped him: 3-point shooting.
This isn't breaking news to anyone who has followed his tenure in the NBA. Wade is a career 29 percent 3-point shooter, a sorry figure that places him 311th among the 315 players in NBA history who have shot at least 1,000 3-pointers.
But Wade has adjusted. Starting in the lockout-shortened 2011-12 season, Wade kicked the habit for the most part and generally expelled the 3-point shot from his regular jump-shooting diet. In 2013-14, Wade's propensity for shooting (and making) the 3 hit a career nadir; he took only 32 trifectas and made only nine during the entire regular season. Five years ago, he might have stumbled into making nine treys in a single week. Those days are long gone.
But here's the crazy thing about all that: Opposing defenses still glued themselves to Wade off the ball like he's the next Steve Kerr.
This isn't just a theory; there is quantifiable evidence of this phenomenon. According to exclusive STATS LLC data provided to ESPN Insider from cutting-edge SportVU cameras that track the movement of the ball and every player last season, defenses stuck to Wade on the perimeter as if he were an elite 3-point shooter.
The question is, why?
During one of last week's practices, Wade was on the Miami Heat's practice court upstairs at AmericanAirlines Arena. The team has been struggling to find its identity in the wake ofLeBron James' sudden departure this summer, and Wade had just wrapped up a long, arduous practice meticulously going over coach Erik Spoelstra's defensive principles. Wade and his teammates are tired, and the general mood feels grim after a string of hard losses.
But in this moment, Wade is laughing. He's giggling because for so long he thought he was going crazy, seeing something on the court that had to be a figment of his imagination. Opposing defenses just won't leave him alone off the ball. To him, this didn't make any sense. He's not a 3-point shooter.
"Lately, I've been seeing everybody start doing this more," Wade said as he turned his back pretending to be a defender gluing himself to a perimeter shooter. "And I'm just like, 'Damn, did I just start shooting 3s and I didn't know about it?'"
To Wade's elation, the data from SportVU cameras corroborated his story. He wasn't seeing things; defenses were really playing him that way.
What Wade was describing was the dynamic of a floor-spacer who spreads the defense thin, a characteristic almost exclusively held by 3-point sharpshooters. Ask an NBA coach to name the best floor-spacers in the league and chances are you'll hear names like Kyle Korver, Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson. You do not leave these guys on the perimeter and live to tell about it. In the domain of floor-spacing, shooters rule the day.
Wade, however, is the quirk in the system. The statisticians at STATS LLC have crunched the SportVU data to come up with two advanced metrics which they've called "gravity score" and "distraction score." By tracking how the defense shifts at every instance in the game, gravity score attempts to quantify how much defensive attention a player receives when he's off the ball. In other words, a player's gravitational pull on the opposing defense.
Distraction score takes this one step further and quantifies how much a player's defender is willing to help off him to stop the ball handler. If a lights-out shooter is standing in the corner, his defender will rarely leave him to stop a penetrating point guard. Coaches have noticed this, but SportVU quantifies it, through comprehensive optical tracking and innovative algorithms.
I wanted to examine which players performed strongly in both metrics so I could identify the NBA's true floor-spacers. So I blended the two metrics together to create a composite metric, which I've called "respect rating."
Now, this is where it gets interesting. Flipping through the leaders in respect rating is like glancing at a list of 3-point contest candidates. There's Kevin Durant. Predictably, Korver's name shows up high on the list. So do Curry and Thompson. Ray Allen. J.J. Redikk. You name the sharpshooter ... he's there.
But oddly enough, so is Wade. He is the anomaly, the lone floor-spacer who ignores 3s altogether.
As illustrated above, Wade converted 0.2 3-pointers every 36 minutes on the court last season, which is remarkably low for someone ranked in the top 25 of respect rating. On average, the other 24 players made far more trifectas than Wade, about 2.2 3s every 36 minutes. Wade was unique in this sense. In fact, no wing player with fewer than 0.5 3-pointers every 36 minutes even cracked the top 100 in respect rating. Tyreke Evans, Shaun Livingstonand Tony Allen? All nowhere near the upper echelon.
But then there's Wade.
"I don't think anybody has ever called me that term -- a floor-spacer -- before," Wade says. "But honestly I've always known that I'm a floor-spacer, just in a different way."
So what makes Wade different? Why do defenses treat Wade like he's an elite 3-point shooter even though he's not?
"They're always up on me," Wade says. "I always wonder why."
The answer to this riddle is not simply that Wade scores a lot of points. It's how he gets his points that matters. More specifically, he's a deadly off-ball threat not because he's a 3-point shooter, but because he's a lethal cutter.
The mystery starts to reveal itself when you look at the Synergy numbers. Since losing the 2011 Finals, Wade says he has dedicated himself to cutting off the ball more for easy buckets. Not surprisingly, the data backs this up. According to Synergy's video tracking, Wade has accumulated 497 points on cuts off the ball, which is 100 more points than anyone else in the league over that time.
What's clear is that Wade is indeed a floor-spacer, but he does it by cutting, not shooting.
And SportVU has detected that defenses are programming against it. Through their algorithms, SportVU has found that Wade pulls his defender away from the ball handler. Last season, Wade ranked 21st in the league in respect rating, which, interestingly enough, places him even higher than James. Part of the reason: James is not quite the same cutter off the ball as Wade.
"I think once I became a dynamic cutter, then it became a part of the scouting report," Wade says. "If you turn your head and go help ...boom, I'm cutting backdoor."
On the practice floor, Wade put on an impromptu demonstration all by himself. He acted like a coach, moving around the perimeter and angling himself in different ways to demonstrate how defenses used to guard him compared to how they've guarded him more recently. Before he developed his off-ball cutting game, his defender used to shade off of him on the perimeter, sinking into the paint and keeping a close eye on the ball. "Now," Wade shouted as he slid from the paint to the 3-point arc, "they will guard me like this."
Wade's gravitational pull has gotten so impactful that he began to use it against his opposition.
AP Photo/Lynne SladkySince the start of the 2011-12 season, Dwyane Wade leads the NBA in points off cutters by a massive margin.
"There have been a lot of times where I tell my teammates, 'Just drive on my side! They're not leaving me!'" Wade said, laughing.
Wade then backtracked a bit.
"Well, it's not like 'Ray Allen not leaving me,'" he says, "but it's my version of not leaving me."
Indeed, Allen placed higher than Wade in respect rating last season. Evidently, Wade's remarkable cutting abilities have not gone unnoticed. Heat.com writer Couper Moorhead has chronicled Wade's now-you-see-me-now-you-don't routine, dubbing it "ghost cuts." Last season, Wade scored 147 points on 97 plays ending in a cut, which translates to a ridiculously good payoff of 1.52 points per play. Only Dwight Howard was more efficient. By comparison, leaving Allen open for a catch-and-shoot play last season -- a defensive cardinal sin -- resulted in a 1.2-point average payoff. Wade's move was more deadly.
Wade stood in the corner and described how he works his magic. He preys on his defender as soon as he drifts away and loses focus.
"It's a feeling, but I'm watching my guy's eyes," Wade said. "I'm looking at the ball and where it's going, because sometimes my job is to run to the top of the key, but if I see he's out of position and he's just looking [toward the ball] ..."
Wade darted to the basket.
"... I'm gone."
But that was then, this is now. Can Wade be effective on cuts without James around anymore?
This is the elephant in the room. James is a passing virtuoso who can see above the defenses like he's observing from an air traffic control tower. Wade was always one pass away, and no player assisted Wade's field goals more than James last season.
It remains to be seen whether teams will be willing to pack the paint more when Wade is off the ball. Why respect his cutting game so much if James isn't around to deliver the pass? It turns out Wade would welcome the extra breathing room.
"That'd be great, fine by me," Wade says. "It'd give me a chance to get my 3 off."
Uh-oh. The career 29 percent 3-point shooter wants to shoot more 3s? Teams may be rooting for that counterpunch.
Wade has indeed taken more 3-pointers this preseason. He's shot 2.7 3-pointers every 36 minutes thus far in five games, which would be his highest rate since 2009-10. He made just 30 percent from deep that season.
"It's funny," he says, "because in the last couple games, I've hit a couple 3s and the guys who are guarding me have looked at me like, 'What?'"
The look typically comes from younger players who only know the James-era Wade.
"Y'all forgot that I did shoot 3s," Wade says. "Last three years I just haven't done it."
And that discipline worked in the Heat's favor. Oftentimes, there were better shots available thanks to James' presence. But now the exchange rate has been disrupted with James gone.
The Heat may have lost James' passing abilities, but they hope that free-agent signee Josh McRoberts can fill some of the void. McRoberts, who has missed the preseason with a toe injury, averaged 4.5 assists per game last season in Charlotte, which marks one of the highest rates in the league among big men. And much of those went to Gerald Henderson and Michael Kidd-Gilchrist, two players who like to cut off the ball, like Wade.
This introduces an interesting wrinkle for Wade's season, and really the rest of his NBA career. Will he need to start shooting 3-pointers to maintain his gravitational pull as he ages? Or has the attention derived from his cutting game made the 3-pointer irrelevant?
Nonetheless, get ready for more 3-pointers from Wade.
"I'm going to shoot 'em more," Wade says, which sounds a little like a warning than a prediction. "It is what it is."
You have our full attention, Dwyane. Let's see how long it lasts.
i haven't been posting much in here cuz i never been a person that can get hype about preseason its just mealiness to me i seen guys go off and than amount to shyt and ive seen guys do shyt than be awesome
so as far as Ennis and Shapazz i feel we wont know shyt until at least the all star break
so as far as Ennis and Shapazz i feel we wont know shyt until at least the all star break
Captain Crunch
Veteran
The focus should be on 2016, and if Napier/Ennis can be solid rotational pieces or starters.
If we finish as a 10th seed these next two years, but Ennis and Napier are solid players, I take it.
WaddupDoe!
Steez.
after this rockets game. i think our team can be good. but we have to make sure our stars play like stars. Wade & Bosh cant take any nights off like before. also i think McBob coming back will be very much what this team needs. we need to stop with this small ball shyt unless its against another small ball team. we can keep getting killed on the boards, because we dont have the 3 point shooting to make up for the lost boards.
Has anyone seen this kid Dawkins play in preseason? We definitely need some shooters
WaddupDoe!
Steez.
Ive seen Dawkins play throughout college at Duke. The kid can shoot the lights out. Just like ever rookie he needs to be more consistent. Honestly he might be our best 3 point shooter on the roster right now.
Captain Crunch
Veteran
Wade on LeBatard right now
He Who Posts Well
Superstar
Facing a 5 p.m. Monday deadline to reduce their roster to a maximum of 15 players, the Miami Heat on Thursday released rookie guards Tyler Johnson and Larry Drew and Hialeah-born forward Shawn Jones. The moves leave the Heat with 16 players on their preseason roster. Of the players released Thursday, Johnson was the most intriguing. Johnson, who went undrafted out of Fresno State in June, impressed the Heat with his athletic play during summer league to the degree that they offered him a $75,000 guarantee to attend training camp. South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Jason Lieser: Heat cut Shawn Jones, Tyler Johnson & Larry Drew. Hoping to get all 3 in d-league. Roster at 16. Twitter @PBPjasonlieser
Damn $75,000 just for training camp?! Even after taxes that's still a good haul after a few weeks of work.
I could see Tyler on our summer league squad. Dude is a good athlete, he just needs to work on his overall basketball skills.
Jason Lieser: Heat cut Shawn Jones, Tyler Johnson & Larry Drew. Hoping to get all 3 in d-league. Roster at 16. Twitter @PBPjasonlieser
Damn $75,000 just for training camp?! Even after taxes that's still a good haul after a few weeks of work.
I could see Tyler on our summer league squad. Dude is a good athlete, he just needs to work on his overall basketball skills.
He Who Posts Well
Superstar
The Heat close their preseason schedule Friday at FedExForum against the Memphis Grizzlies, then open their regular season Wednesday at AmericanAirlines Arena against the Washington Wizards. The Heat's final cut could come down to guard Andre Dawkins or forward Khem Birch. South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Brehs who you got? We could always use shooters but we could also use a big that plays like a big. I wish we could keep both of them.
Brehs who you got? We could always use shooters but we could also use a big that plays like a big. I wish we could keep both of them.
He Who Posts Well
Superstar
Coach Erik Spoelstra confirmed Thursday that center Justin Hamilton will make his preseason debut in Friday's game against the Memphis Grizzlies at the FedExForum. Hamilton was held out of the first seven exhibitions of the eight-game preseason schedule following a heart procedure the first week of training camp. Spoelstra said Hamilton has gone through full contact drilling the past two practices at AmericanAirlines Arena. South Florida Sun-Sentinel
-------------------
The reality is that based on how he has been utilized during the preseason, Cole is in a position to negotiate for starter's money. Against that backdrop, however, is Riley's plan to keep as much salary-cap flexibility as possible for the 2016 offseason, with only Chris Bosh and Josh McRoberts holding Heat contracts that extended beyond 2015-16. "Of course I'm aware of it," Cole said of the Halloween deadline, "but I've never been one to worry about stuff like that. I always know that if I do what I'm supposed to do, things are going to be the way they're supposed to be." South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Miami Heat, Free Agency, Norris Cole
There was an interesting twist with Cole in the offseason, when he signed on with agent Rich Paul, the same agent who handled LeBron James' July free-agency departure from the Heat to the Cleveland Cavaliers. "It was a decision me and my support system made," Cole said of that move to James' long-time associate. "It was a decision we made and that's as much as I want to say about it. I felt it was best for me." Cole, who played at Cleveland State, with Paul's agency based in Northeast Ohio, said the decision was not influenced by James. "No, I was familiar with him," he said of Paul. Cole, who is from Dayton, said it was not a means of testing whether he, too, could return to his Ohio roots. "I made the decision based on for me and what I need," he said, "not based off anybody else. I made a decision based on what I thought and what was best for me." South Florida Sun-Sentinel
He's leaving
-------------------
The reality is that based on how he has been utilized during the preseason, Cole is in a position to negotiate for starter's money. Against that backdrop, however, is Riley's plan to keep as much salary-cap flexibility as possible for the 2016 offseason, with only Chris Bosh and Josh McRoberts holding Heat contracts that extended beyond 2015-16. "Of course I'm aware of it," Cole said of the Halloween deadline, "but I've never been one to worry about stuff like that. I always know that if I do what I'm supposed to do, things are going to be the way they're supposed to be." South Florida Sun-Sentinel
There was an interesting twist with Cole in the offseason, when he signed on with agent Rich Paul, the same agent who handled LeBron James' July free-agency departure from the Heat to the Cleveland Cavaliers. "It was a decision me and my support system made," Cole said of that move to James' long-time associate. "It was a decision we made and that's as much as I want to say about it. I felt it was best for me." Cole, who played at Cleveland State, with Paul's agency based in Northeast Ohio, said the decision was not influenced by James. "No, I was familiar with him," he said of Paul. Cole, who is from Dayton, said it was not a means of testing whether he, too, could return to his Ohio roots. "I made the decision based on for me and what I need," he said, "not based off anybody else. I made a decision based on what I thought and what was best for me." South Florida Sun-Sentinel
He's leaving