Ira Winderman: Wayne Ellington’s Heat circle of life remains one of renewal

Ask Wayne Ellington about this return to the Miami Heat as an assistant coach and the former NBA 3-point specialist says “it’s like home.”

But listen to Ellington chronicle this path back to the Heat, and it also is about renewal — just as it was during his initial arrival to Miami as a player in 2016.

Meaningful then.

Meaningful now.

“When I came in here,” Ellington says of joining the Heat as a player seven years ago, “I was going into my eighth season, and my trajectory as a player, I’m not exactly sure what it was. But when I got here, I know that I bought in, and I think I changed that trajectory. I was able to reinvent myself as one of the top shooters in the NBA.”

That rebirth came in the wake of tragedy.

“At the time, my dad had been killed in Philly two years prior to that, and I was coming up out of a darker place and harder place in my life, obviously,” he says of that random act of violence on a Philadelphia street corner. “And when I got here, I really bought in. I really bought into what the culture was about. I really bought into what the coaching staff was preaching. And I put the work in and I saw that change in helping me become who I thought I could be as a player.

“And that connection, I felt like embedded me here for life. People talk about like Heat Lifer and stuff. It’s not just guys that play here for their whole career. It’s guys that make the relationships, build the relationships and grow the relationships. Even when you leave, you maintain them.”

Including feeling the pull during the Heat’s run to last season’s NBA Finals.

“I came back for some playoff games this past year, and when I came back in the building, it felt like I never left,” he says. “Even that, that was a great example for me that this is like a home for me.”

At the time, Ellington was leaning toward more of a front-office role.

Then came a meeting with coach Erik Spoelstra, Ellington’s coach during his 2 1/2 seasons with the Heat.

“We just had some clear, crystal-clear conversations,” Ellington says. “Obviously, Spo and I had always been connected and never really lost that connection. So it just made more sense for me, after those conversations that we had, to take this route.”

One that teammates along his nine NBA stops had encouraged.

“It’s funny,” Ellington says with a laugh, “when I was playing, I got asked that question a lot, ‘Hey, when you’re done, you got to consider coaching.’ Even the different teams I went to, ‘When you’re done, you should really consider coaching.’ I was like, ‘Yeah, I don’t know. We’ll see.’ It’s a lot to manage. But here I am.”

At 35, Ellington still could be playing, two years younger than Heat point guard Kyle Lowry, the same age as Heat power forward Kevin Love. So he took last season off, to make sure the game was out of his system.

“I didn’t want to create any confusion for myself,” he says. “That’s primarily why I took that year off with my family, to really make that adjustment, to make sure this is something that I want to do.

“I had my daddy duties. I was picking my kids up from school and dropping them off and doing all the things in between. And it was fun and it was good and that was healthy for me. But at the same time, that whole time I was doing it, something was missing. And being back here in the gym, I think that’s exactly what it was.”

Now, on game nights, he sits behind the Heat bench, as a developmental coach, working with Duncan Robinson, a former Heat teammate who has gone on to break Ellington’s Heat 3-point records.

And then between games, it’s drilling Heat players in the Heat way, just as he had been drilled.

“He reached out right away, and that was a name that when I brought it up to everybody in the building, everybody said yes, and said it was just the perfect fit,” Spoelstra says. “And that’s from the training staff to upstairs (the front office) to the weight-room staff to the coaching staff, and that really speaks to the impression that he left on everybody here, and somebody I think, also, is a great example of our player-development program.

“He’d already been eight years in and reinvented himself and really had his best years after.”

The playing time with Heat helped him through those darkest days.

This second act has felt as much of a renewal.

“It’s been great, honestly,” he says. “It’s been some weird moments. It’s been some moments where I’m ready to jump in line and participate in a drill. But at the same time, it’s been great.

“Guys are already calling me Weezy, my nickname. So it’s like home.”