Heat's Magloire out at least 6 weeks with hand injury

MIAMI -- Heat center Jamaal Magloire will miss at least six weeks with a broken left hand, and could be sidelined even longer if surgery is required to repair the fracture.

Magloire was injured in Miami's preseason overtime loss against New Jersey in Paris on Thursday. He returned to South Florida after the game, while the Heat remained behind for a rematch with the Nets on Sunday in London.

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Magloire Injures Left Hand in Heat Loss

MIAMI, Oct. 9 -- Miami Heat center Jamaal Magloire suffered a fracture of the third metacarpal in his left hand during the third quarter of play in today’s preseason contest against the New Jersey Nets in Paris, France. Magloire was taken to a local Paris hospital for x-rays which confirmed the fracture.

Magloire will not accompany the team to London, England for their second of two preseason games against New Jersey in Europe and will be reevaluated upon his return to Miami.

Magloire was signed by Miami as a free agent on September 2, 2008.

Heat Waive Matt Walsh

MIAMI, Oct. 4 – The Miami Heat announced Saturday that they have requested waivers on Matt Walsh.

The 6’6”, 205-pound forward, was signed by the Heat as a free agent on September 26, 2008. Last season, he appeared in 18 games with Ricoh Manresa of the Spanish ACB League and averaged 11.3 points, 3.2 rebounds and 1.30 steals last season. He then joined TEC Spirou Charleroi of the Belgian League and appeared in 14 games averaging 12.4 points, 4.8 rebounds and 1.9 assists.

He previously signed with the Heat as an undrafted free agent on August 15, 2005, playing in two games totaling three minutes while finishing with two points as he connected on his only field goal attempt before being waived on November 18, 2005.

Heat Aim to Build Momentum in Preseason Games

MIAMI, Oct. 4 (AP) -- The notion that preseason games are irrelevant doesn't apply these days with the Miami Heat.

A winless exhibition record in 2007 was the first sign of trouble in what quickly became a miserable season for the Heat, who open this year's preseason slate Sunday at home against the Detroit Pistons.

With a revamped roster and newly installed offensive sets, the Heat may place a bit more emphasis on the games that don't count this year, with hopes of building some momentum to take into the regular season.

"We're basically trying to start a new style, as far as maybe being a little more up and down and the way we want to play pace-wise,'' Heat forward Udonis Haslem said. "So it means a lot, more so to us probably than other teams that have been together and have had the same style of play for the last couple years.''

Of the 13 players Miami used in last season's preseason opener, only four are still with the club.

No, this game won't exactly have playoff intensity, and neither team will have any of its best players logging 40 minutes of court time.

There are certain things new coach Erik Spoelstra wants to see as a barometer of what his club has picked up over the first week of training camp, like an understanding of the defensive philosophy and the effectiveness of a quicker-tempo offense.

"It's like that quote from John Wooden, 'Be quick but don't hurry,''' Spoelstra said. "It's kind of how I want our guys to be. I want to take advantage of our athleticism, but I don't want it to be a wild and crazy game. I'll pull the reins on it if it gets too crazy.''

Miami was 0-7 in the exhibition season last year, then went a league-worst 15-67 in the regular season. Eventual NBA champion Boston was 4-3 in exhibition games. Kobe Bryant and the Western Conference champion Los Angeles Lakers went 3-4. Atlanta was six games over .500 in games that didn't count, then eight games under .500 in the ones that did.

But there's something to be said about getting a taste of winning.

"You don't want to get into the habit of losing - or losing by 20 points,'' Heat guard Dwyane Wade said.

The Heat leave for Europe on Monday, for exhibition games in Paris on Thursday and London next weekend against the New Jersey Nets, part of the league's annual initiative of bringing the game to a global audience.

Sunday's game, combined with the practices and games overseas, will surely give Spoelstra a better sense of what his regular-season roster and rotation will look like.

"I think everybody knows that it's not about the 'W,''' Spoelstra said. "But it is about looking good and producing.''

Miami pared its training camp roster to 19 on Saturday morning by releasing forward Matt Walsh, who played in two games for the Heat in the 2005-06 season and spent last year in Spain and Belgium.

HEAT Sign Shaun Livingston

MIAMI, 10/03 – The Miami HEAT have announced that they have signed free agent guard Shaun Livingston and requested waivers on guard Tre Kelley. Per team policy, terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Livingston, a 6’7”, 185-pound guard, appeared in 145 games (60 starts) with the Los Angeles Clippers and averaged 7.4 points, 4.8 assists, 3.1 rebounds and 0.94 steals in 27.2 minutes while shooting 44.0 percent from the field and 71.0 percent from the foul line. In his last season (2006-07) with the Clippers, he led the team in assists per game (5.1) and set career highs in games started (31), minutes per game (29.9), field goals made (208), field goal attempts (449), field goal percentage (.463), free throws made (82), free throws attempted (116), assist-to-turnover ratio (2.54), rebounds per game (3.4), steals per game (1.09), and blocks per game (0.54).

“Shaun Livingston was one of the best young players to come into the draft in a long, long time. We feel very fortunate to be able to sign him and help us rebuild our program,” said HEAT President Pat Riley.

Livingston, the fourth overall selection in the 2004 NBA Draft, was named the Western Conference got milk? Rookie of the Month for April of 2005 after averaging 11.0 points, 7.4 assists, 1.40 steals and 35.9 minutes in 10 games.

Kelley was signed by the HEAT on September 26, 2008 as a free agent.

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Riley settling into new role with Heat, once again

MIAMI (AP) - The Miami Heat gathered on their practice court, the squeaks of sneakers and the bouncing of basketballs echoing off the walls. It was like countless workouts before. This time, however, Pat Riley wasn't the coach.

The new era of Heat basketball _ with Erik Spoelstra the coach _ opened with the start of training camp Saturday, and Riley insists he couldn't be happier.

A Hall of Fame coach with 1,210 wins, seven championship rings and an iconic legacy in the league, Riley decided five months ago that the time was right to turn the keys over to Spoelstra, who worked his way from the video room to the coach's chair in 13 years.

Riley is still around, but will lead from the front office, not the front lines.

"My role is that I'm the president of basketball operations and my job is to try to build this team back to where we want to become a championship contender again," Riley said. "I want to do that as quickly as I can. But I'll do it from behind my desk. I'm not going to be out there in front. I think it'll be a lot like it was the last time. ... I know where my place is."

Almost to a man, everyone in the Heat locker room, even those who never played for him, still call him "Coach Riley."

The fact that he isn't coaching anymore won't change that.

His office is a short walk from the practice floor, he'll almost be a fixture at most games _ whether he's visible or not _ and still has a powerful voice in every Heat personnel decision. Plus, Spoelstra isn't shy about saying he's a product of the Heat culture, the one Riley installed when he arrived in South Florida in the mid-90s.

"All I've experienced in my two years prior to this is coach Riley running everything," third-year point guard Chris Quinn said. "But coach Spo was my summer league coach for two years, so I kind of have a little taste of it. It's exciting, kind of a new beginning, especially after last year. It's exciting to have another year and to get things going."

Riley met with Spoelstra constantly during the offseason, talking about how to revamp the roster while keeping salaries below the luxury tax threshold; the Heat did that with a mere $415,000 to spare.

But their chats were about players, not plays.

On that point, Riley is clear: It's Spoelstra's call.

"I know he's an X-and-O coach. I know that part of the game, from that standpoint, he's very knowledgeable," Riley said. "He's going to be organized. He's going to be disciplined. And I think he'll bring it out on the court, every single night."

Riley will be watching closely, of course. His role is still, in many ways, patriarchal within the Heat, having spent years grooming Spoelstra for this opportunity.

That doesn't mean that if Riley disagrees with something Spoelstra does, he'll necessarily chime in with his opinion.

"I'm not going to be up and down with him on anything that I see, that I might not agree with," Riley said. "Everybody does it differently. I trust that he's going to do it in the nature that he feels comfortable in doing it in, so I'm going to give him a free rein here."

Riley retired once before, tapping former top assistant Stan Van Gundy to be his replacement in a stunning move days before the start of the 2003-04 season, Dwyane Wade's rookie campaign.

Van Gundy eventually stepped down as well, citing family reasons 21 games into the 2005-06 season. Riley returned, led the Heat to that season's NBA title, and stayed for the last two injury-plagued years.

He insists that this time, his coaching days are done for good.

"One day I was driving to work and then all of a sudden my mind went there, and I just said, 'Thank God I'm not in there doing film and doing playbooks and doing all these things that would overwhelm your mind,'" Riley said. "Even though I'm a little bit overwhelmed with my desk duties now, that's behind me. And I love watching Erik work."