With the NBA season a mere weeks away from starting, the Miami Heat held their media day at the American Airlines Arena. Miami Heat media day is the unofficial start to the NBA season where players and coaches hold interviews with various media outlets as well as pose for their official portraits. It does feel good to know that basketball is right around the corner.
While the day mostly fun and jovial, there was that dark cloud of Donald Trump’s comments about NFL players that asked by every reporter to every player. Some players answered others were hesitant to enter the controversial fray. Miami Heat head coach, Erik Spoelstra, weighed in on the topic early into his press conference with the media and was pretty vocal about being against the comments made by Trump.
The best part of the day was watching the interactions of the players with each other. In years past the players would comment with each other here and there while getting their photos taken, but this year was different. It was different in that every player interacted with each other. Jokes were made during photo shoots, other players crashing interviews etc. You could see the camaraderie among the players.
It was fun for me watching them as well as interacting with various media outlets such as ESPN and Getty Images. I would follow the players from station to station taking their photos on the different backdrops with different poses and props. It was also fun to watch other photographers work and their lighting setup styles.
Players had a 2 minute time limit for each media outlet which helped make their rounds go by quicker. In years past, some times the time limits weren’t vigorously enforced and after a while you could see the players grow tired. This Miami Heat media day went smoothly and it was my favorite one to date.
