It’s commonplace throughout the history of the game, that a big man suffers a lower body injury and loses a season to injury. For the Heat, losing Josh McRoberts after 17 games left a void on the team that ultimately resulted in one of the most important free agent signing in team history.
It forced Shawne Williams to take on a starting role and, eventually, led Erik Spoelstra to slide Chris Bosh back to his natural position at power forward and start Chris Andersen. That led the team to sign Hassan Whiteside out of the D-League, and Whiteside’s story went into the history books.