Miami Heat Rumors 2016: Keith Smart Holds High Hopes To Recover From Skin Cancer; May Return To Help Coach The Team
After months of radioactive treatments for a rare form of skin cancer, Miami Heat Assistant Coach Keith was finally seen with the team last Friday night. Despite his current ordeal with cancer, Smart remained upbeat in his role as mentor.
About a week following his inspirational talk with the team ahead of Miami Heat's game against the Sacramento Kings on Friday at Sleep Train Arena; he was back around the bend doing his official coaching duties.
On December 14 last year, the former NBA head coach went under the knife for 15 hours for the skin cancer on his left cheek as well as skin graft from his leg. In order reduce the odds of recurrence from 50-50 to 1-in-500; he agreed to subject himself to 30 radiotherapy sessions at the University of California San Francisco's Mount Zion Hospital since February 17 as reported by ESPN.
"I have to go through this skin regeneration now, where I'm going to kind of look like the 'Thriller' video for a while, with everything coming and going. So we want to make sure everything is healthy there as I start to try to get back into my daily life as a coach," said Smart as quoted in a Sun Sentinel report.
Meanwhile, Heat Guard Dwayne Wade has missed this 7th game this season after being absent from Miami's Friday game against Sacramento due to neck and back soreness. After falling hard to the floor in Wednesday's Lakers game, Head Coach Erik Spoelstra said that his ace player is walking 'like Frankenstein since the injury. He is likely to skip his team's game at Portland this coming Saturday.
"It got worse [Friday]. [From] the impact I made when I hit the floor, my lower back is real sore. And my neck from my head hitting the floor is real sore. It's hard to walk normal, and it's hard to look left or right fast," said Wade as quoted by Miami Herald.
He added, "There's nothing I can do except take it one step at a time, because it's not just my back. It's my back and my neck. [It's] equally bad [with both]. When I feel like I can move around, do things I need to do, I will jump back out there."
