The Miami Heat have lost second-year guard Dru Smith for the season due to a serious knee sprain suffered in Cleveland, the team announced this weekend.
UPDATE: Dru Smith has been diagnosed with a 3rd degree right ACL sprain. He will be out for the remainder of the season.
— Miami HEAT (@MiamiHEAT) November 24, 2023
How Smith injured his leg had the Miami organization calling the league office. Smith lept to contest a Max Strus corner 3 and landed out of bounds near the Cavaliers’ bench, where there is about a 10-inch drop-off from the court to the floor. Smith landed on the edge of that drop, and his leg twisted under him.
The Heat didn’t file anything formal but did call the league office to complain about that drop, reports Anthony Chiang of the Miami Herald.
The Heat did not issue a formal complaint, but the team called the NBA to express concern about the Cavaliers’ home court after Dru Smith suffered a season-ending knee injury on the raised floor earlier this week.
— Anthony Chiang (@Anthony_Chiang) November 26, 2023
As Joe Varden and other reporters covering the Cavaliers noted, that 10-inch drop has been there the entire 30 years the Cavaliers have been in this building. That doesn’t make it right or safe. LeBron James told Varden of the Athletic:
“Yes, the league should look at it. They should address it.”
“It’s something that definitely needs to be looked at,” [Lakers head coach and former NBA player Darvin] Ham said. “Any time … you have a situation where someone’s getting hurt and the potential to get hurt, and in this particular case it’s the floor, I think they need to take a look at it and see if there are ways things could be better.”
After 30 years there may not be a way to address it, at least in the short term. Unfortunately, sometimes it takes a serious injury for a safety issue to get called out, and that seems to finally be the case with the court in Cleveland.