Terry Rozier cleared for 5-on-5, looking forward to first Heat camp: ‘It’s a fresh start’

This offseason has challenged Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier because it has been different than the others that he has endured since entering the NBA in 2015.

Rozier has spent the past five months recovering from a troublesome neck injury that cut short his first season with the Heat before the playoffs began. He sat out the Heat’s final 11 games last season — the final four games of the regular season, the two play-in tournament games and the entire five-game first-round playoff series against the Boston Celtics — after being acquired by the Charlotte Hornets through a trade in late January.

“Super tough,” Rozier said recently when asked how hard it was to remain patient throughout the recovery process. “This is the first summer where I had to rehab from the beginning and take steps and put it in somebody else’s hands and trust them with it. But this has probably been one of my best summers. It’s been great for me. The Heat organization has been doing a great job every day to where we are at right now.”

Where is Rozier at now? He was just recently cleared to play 5-on-5 basketball and is expected to be ready to take part in training camp next week after spending the summer rehabbing from his neck injury.

The Heat will hold media day Monday at Kaseya Center in Miami before opening training camp at Baha Mar in the Bahamas on Oct. 1.

“I’m still the same old Terry when I play,” Rozier said. “Whatever happened in the past, I won’t let it affect how I play. ... I’m going to play how I play. But nothing affects how I go now. I’m still myself, so I feel good.”

Rozier averaged 16.4 points, 4.2 rebounds, 4.6 assists and one steal per game while shooting 42.3 percent from the field and 37.1 percent on threes in 31 games (30 starts) for the Heat last regular season before being sidelined by the neck injury. With the Heat in need of players who can put pressure on the rim, Rozier provided that by averaging the third-most drives to the basket on the team last season with 10.3 per game behind only Jimmy Butler and Tyler Herro.

After playing as a high-usage guard who averaged 23.2 points on 18.3 field-goal attempts per game with the Hornets last season prior to the trade, it took Rozier a few weeks to adjust to a more complementary role with the Heat alongside its leading trio of Bam Adebayo, Butler and Herro. But Rozier’s best stretch in a Heat uniform came just before he went out with the neck injury, averaging 18.8 points per game on 45.3 percent shooting from the field and 50 percent shooting on 7.4 three-point attempts per game in his final 10 appearances of the season.

“I know the fans are eager to see what it’s going to be like this year,” said Rozier, who is preparing for his first Heat training camp since being acquired by Miami midway through last season. “It sucks the way it ended last year for me. Not being able to play in the playoffs, I think that was one of the main reasons I came here — to help this organization.

“But it’s a fresh start. You get to be around the guys for a full season, be around the coaches for a full season, learn the plays and really just get that camaraderie with the other guys. So it’s going to be super helpful. I think we just let last year go, and just focus on this year and move on.”

But Rozier won’t forget the lessons that he learned during the past few months amid the uncertainty and concern surrounding his neck issue.

With the injury first listed as neck stiffness, Rozier initially blamed the injury on “the traveling and the sleeping” in early April. But further tests revealed concerning results that kept him off the basketball court for a while.

“I mean, for me just playing fully and then to go to not and having to miss the playoffs, you get to questioning like, ‘Damn, could this possibly be the end for me?’” Rozier admitted. “But obviously, I’ve been blessed with a really great body and I’ve been able to recover. So I’m going to go back to the drawing board and do this [thing] again.”

Rozier has two seasons left on his current contract, and he’s set to be the fourth-highest paid player on the Heat’s roster with a $24.9 million salary for next season behind only Butler, Adebayo and Herro. The Heat traded guard Kyle Lowry’s sizable expiring $29.7 million salary and a first-round pick to the Hornets to land Rozier in January.

When asked what can be expected from him in his second season with the Heat, Rozier didn’t want to give anything away.

“It’s just a wait and see,” Rozier said. “That’s why I stayed off all the podcasts. I don’t do all the talking. My game speaks for itself. It’s always been like that. This summer, I’ve been seeing all the talk. I don’t know if people have been bored or whatever, but I see it all. So I’m going to respond the right way.”