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How Bob McAdoo, Keith Askins set the foundation for Udonis Haslem’s banner Heat night

ira winderman, south florida sun-sentinel
·4 min read

MIAMI — As Udonis Haslem prepared for his No. 40 to be raised Friday night to the Kaseya Center rafters, he reflected back to the beginning and how the input of a single NBA legend set it all in motion.

“McAdoo, Bob McAdoo,” Haslem said to the Sun Sentinel of the Hall of Fame forward who was working as a Heat assistant coach when Haslem was on the NBA’s summer tryout circuit in 2003. “I’ve got to credit McAdoo. He was a Hall of Famer, but he was the one who called the Heat and said, ‘Hey, we have to sign this guy.’ ”

With Haslem ultimately feted for a 20-year Heat career that included three NBA championships, his Heat story is a story that arguably can be traced to a single moment in time and a single phone call from McAdoo to Heat President Pat Riley.

Cut by the Atlanta Hawks at the end of their 2002 training camp in favor of NBA veteran Ira Newble, Haslem spent a season in France before returning to play on 2003 summer-league rosters with the Heat in Orlando and then the San Antonio Spurs in Las Vegas.

The Heat did not field a team in Las Vegas that summer, but had McAdoo on hand to keep track of available prospects.

As he did with the Heat in Orlando, Haslem thrived with the Spurs in Las Vegas.

A one-year contract offer from the Spurs followed.

As did a phone call from McAdoo, still a Heat scout, to Riley.

“McAdoo said, ‘We have to sign this guy,’ ” Haslem relayed. “He told me that. So for him to be able to say that, who knows if any of this happens if he doesn’t make that phone call?”

Instead, Haslem signed a two-year guaranteed contract with the Heat, then playing it out with his hometown team all the way to the end of last season’s run to the NBA Finals.

“This is one thing that Bob McAdoo has brought to us over the years, he knows talent,” Riley said this week, when asked to reflect on that McAdoo call. “Bob is one of those guys who can walk into the gym and within five minutes picks out the best player with the best potential. He just has an eye for these kinds of guys. That’s why he still is working for us.”

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Also on the Heat coaching staff at the time was former Heat forward Keith Askins, who immediately took Haslem under his wing.

As with McAdoo, Haslem said if no Askins, then possibly no two Heat decades.

“My first couple of years,” Haslem said, “I didn’t work out with anybody but KA. So KA was more hands on with me than anybody, defensively and working on my shot. He’s a 3-and-D guy, so he understands what a defensive matchup would be, and making open shots.”

Haslem said Askins, now working as the Heat’s director of college and pro scouting, set the groundwork for what would be the foundation of a 20-year run.

“Keith Askins told me, ‘A lot of people can shoot. A lot of people can score. The way you’re going to make this team is defending and rebounding,’ ” Haslem said on his podcast this week. “And that was just my mindset from the jump. In college, I didn’t rebound and defend. I could score. Rebound and defending, that wasn’t my thing.”

Askins instilled that they had to be.

“So my first couple of years,” Haslem said in a phone interview, “I really patterned a lot of things that I did on the basketball court after KA, just being able to defend and knock down my open shots.”

To Riley, it is not beyond the realm of Haslem one day entering the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame because of such perseverance.

“I do believe that he is worthy of that, one day,” Riley said, with Haslem’s 7.5 career scoring average above the 5.7 of the Hall of Fame’s Ben Wallace and 7.3 of the Hall’s Dennis Rodman.

“And I do believe, like a lot of players that have won championships, get recognized in the Hall of Fame one day. I don’t know when that’s going to be, but I do think his name will come up for nomination.”