Former Miami Heat forward Markieff Morris recently put the organization on blast for how it handled his neck injury when he played for the team in the 2021-22 season. In a recent podcast appearance, Morris accused the Heat of writing him off and keeping him on the bench long after he was cleared to play.
However, the Heat organization reportedly doesn’t agree with Morris’ account of how things went down following his injury in his one season with the franchise. Five Reasons Sports’ Ethan J. Skolnick shared via Discord that Miami disputes his account, though the team doesn’t want to draw more attention to the story.
“The Heat dispute Markieff Morris’s account btw,” Skolnick wrote. “(I know because I got a lot of texts). But they don’t want to draw more attention to it”
It’s unclear what exact components of Morris’ story the Heat don’t see eye to eye with him on, but maybe the franchise believes he was more seriously injured than he let on with his podcast comments.
According to Morris, he was cleared just two weeks after Denver Nuggets superstar Nikola Jokic injured his neck and gave him whiplash. Yet, he sat out a whopping 58 consecutive games for Miami.
Heading into the 2021-22 campaign, Heat fans had reason to believe that Morris would be an important contributor. After all, he was on the heels of playing 61 games (27 starts) for the Los Angeles Lakers in the 2020-21 season, when he averaged 6.7 points and 4.4 rebounds per game.
However, Morris logged just 17 appearances across the Heat’s 82-game schedule. He was also a nonfactor for Miami in the 2022 NBA Playoffs, as he totaled just three minutes of playing time in one appearance across the team’s 18 playoff contests.
The Heat made a run all the way to the Eastern Conference Finals in that year’s playoffs and nearly advanced to the championship series, but they lost to the Boston Celtics in seven games.
Hopefully, Heat fans will get the full truth regarding how the team handled Morris’ neck injury sooner rather than later, but with Miami not wanting to draw more attention to the matter, folks shouldn’t hold their breath that the team will give its side of the story anytime soon.