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Jones accepts reality checkEddie Jones arrived in South Florida as an All-Star, the next wave, the hometown kid poised to lead the Heat out of a cycle of playoff misery. He was thinking big. Pat Riley was thinking big. Expectations were substantial. That was then. Flash forward to this month, with Riley describing the "ideal" for this season's Heat as fielding four 15-point scorers, a load split evenly among Lamar Odom, Caron Butler, Dwyane Wade and Jones. "I don't think," the Heat coach says, "there's one guy where we're going to give the ball to this guy and he's going to become Tracy McGrady." Four years into his Heat tenure, Eddie Jones has become what he seemingly most loathed being labeled, a complementary player. Perhaps even more significant is that the 6-foot-6 guard accepts the reality -- either as a more mature presence at 31, or a beaten-down one. "I'm a steady player," he says, "I'm going to give you the same thing every night." Read the Full Story Discuss Send Feedback Buy Tickets Fast Eddie: Don't quickly forget meOn this day, Eddie Jones is in one of his moods. Thank goodness it's a good mood. It frees up the sometimes stand-offish 6-foot-6 guard to discuss subjects such as his status in the NBA, talk that he has been a disappointment in his three seasons with the Heat, that he should be traded, that he's not a team leader. "My status in the league right now," the nine-year veteran and three-time All-Star said, "is I think people have forgotten about me. I'm not in the playoffs. My numbers are the same, but I'm not in the playoffs. I think when you're not winning, they don't think anything of you." That's not the sentiment on the Heat for now. Although the team is developing a new foundation with forwards Caron Butler and Lamar Odom and rookie guard Dwyane Wade, Jones isn't on the trading block. "Contrary to all these reports," coach Pat Riley said, "he's a productive player." Read the Full Story Discuss Send Feedback Buy Tickets Riley Brings Showtime to the HeatThere was a time when Pat Riley's name was synonymous with beautiful basketball, when Magic Johnson led the greatest fast break ever, when James Worthy finished with statuesque dunks, when the half-court set was the domain of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's majestic sky hook. It was the game at its finest, Showtime in Los Angeles, and Riley, with his slicked-back hair and Armani suits, presided over it perfectly as the stylish architect of it all. But over the past 12 years, Riley beat that image into the ground and buried it, his teams in New York and Miami using a brutal type of thuggery that was palatable only because it produced victories. Now, after failing to make the playoffs the last two seasons, Riley is ready to revert. When the Miami Heat opens training camp this week, Riley will introduce his team to a poor man's version of Showtime. It will be a crude copy to be sure, but Riley nonetheless plans to run and play pretty again. The key to Miami's transformation will be two young players the team acquired this off-season, the free agent Lamar Odom and the first-round draft pick Dwyane Wade. Barring injuries or new revelations during training camp, Riley will start Wade and Odom alongside Caron Butler, Eddie Jones and Brian Grant. That lineup features no true point guard and no true center, just four extremely versatile and athletic players (none smaller than 6 feet 4 inches) and one hardy rebounder in Grant. Miami Heat, Los Angeles Lakers, New York Knicks Read the Full Story Discuss Send Feedback Buy Tickets Heat Sep 2003 Archive
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