Tuesday Practice Report - Merci

Live from Paris comes the Heat's practice report from Tuesday's workout at Bercy Arena in advance of Thursday's (and Sunday's) preseason game against the New Jersey Nets.

I can sympathize with how worn out the Miami Heat players and coaches were after emerging from that overnight Air France flight from Miami that got in just after 8 a.m. Paris time. I was on it.

So it caught me as somewhat of a surprise that first-year coach Erik Spoelstra followed through with plans for the team to practice on those dead legs just hours after landing. Players did catch a bit of a break. The noon start of practice was pushed back about 90 minutes. But Spoelstra had good reason for pushing his groggy group through a near two-hour workout.

"The main idea was to get them to sweat, to get them to working, to get them away from the hotel rooms, away from the beds," Spoelstra said. "And not just the players; the staff alike. We all felt like hitting the sheets and crashing in. But we're trying to get accustomed to this time zone as quickly as possible and (Wednesday) we'll be OK."

- Despite all of his world travels, there are still moments when Heat guard Dwyane Wade is overwhelmed with the notion of being a global basketball icon.

A month after leading the U.S team to a gold medal in Beijing, Wade was back on foreign land Tuesday as the NBA's marquee name in this year's version of the Europe Live Tour. The Heat plays the Nets on Thursday in Paris and again on Sunday in London. Wade has ranked among the top five players in international jersey sales since he guided the Heat to the 2006 NBA title.

  "I'm a little bit more aware of everything, but sometimes I still just can't understand it," Wade said of his global popularity. "You just know by going over there that you're a little bit more global each time. But you're not always over there. But it's not something that happens every day. So it's always refreshing. If we can pick where we go every year, we'll be fine. But we don't pick."

- Speaking of picking, Wade did take a few shots - literally and figuratively - at the Bercy Arena court. He wasn't happy with the divots and dead spots he said were all over the hardwood floor. Usually, Wade isn't as critical as he was after Tuesday's practice. But this clearly struck a nerve.

"It's terrible," Wade said. "It's got a lot of dead spots. It's very slippery. The NBA needs to change it. It's so many dead spots, there's going to be so many turnovers (Thursday). But yeah, it's terrible."

- Heat owner Micky Arison and team president Pat Riley attended Tuesday's practice. Afterward, Riley introduced Arison to a couple of the Heat's newcomers, including France native Yakhouba Diawara. Arison and Riley also made sure to check in with Wade, Udonis Haslem and Michael Beasley.

- Miami native Udonis Haslem gets the pleasure of playing in his hometown at least 41 times a season. Yet, he never takes the opportunity for granted. That's why he could sympathize with the pride Diawara has shown around the team leading up to Thursday's game.

"It's special to me and I'm there every day," Haslem said. "For him not to hardly be here and to come home and have this opportunity, you can take my experiences and multiply them by 10. I was talking to him earlier today and he said he's got 50 people coming and he has to rent a bus. I told him to remember that the Euro is more than the dollar, so be careful."