Slam Dunk Central

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?It is bad enough that the Miami Heat are suffering through a 14-game losing streak; but according to Craig Barnes of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, center Shaquille O’Neal could miss as much as a month of playing time with acute inflammation of the left hip and quadriceps.? The Heat announced that O’Neal will spend the next two weeks receiving treatment and ice for the inflammation and fluid that has accumulated.? Assuming the inflammation and fluid subside, more time will be set aside for rehabilitation.

Heat coach Pat Riley said that an MRI performed on Tuesday revelaed the inflammation and fluid; some fluid drained into the quad muscle and a blood test was conducted.? I would suspect that the team will allow O’Neal all of the time necessary for the rest and rehabilitation to be successful; in the meantime, probably the only person who even remotely resembles a big man in the middle is Mark Blount.? Blount, while O’Neal was in Los Angeles receiving treatment for bursitis of the hip, performed relatively well, averaging 13.7 PPG and 4.8 RPG during that period.

I would imagine that because of the team’s current record that it would not make much sense to seek out a big man on the free agent market; but then again, how Blount performs while O’Neal is out will probably dictate what fcourse of action, if any, that the Heat will take.? So for all intents and purposes, the heat is really on Heat guard Dwyane Wade - especially since he doesn’t have much of a roster to work with.