--Heat GM Randy Pfund resigned suddenly last week. He said in a statement: "It's a perfect time to pursue other opportunities within the NBA." Pfund was president Pat Riley's right-hand man for 13 years in Miami. Riley said Pfund wasn't forced out.
--Nick Arison, the 27-year-old son of owner Micky Arison, was promoted to vice president of basketball operations during the offseason. "We'll all be working for him someday," Riley quipped.
The younger Arison, the likely heir to the team's ownership, has come up through the ranks, practically starting as a ballboy years ago. He's spent the past few years on the business side of the organization.
Arison, who attended Duke, has spent the past two Olympics working with USA Basketball and has been with the Olympic team, seated on the second row of the bench, during the Athens and Beijing Olympics. He'll be more active in contract and salary-cap issues, personnel discussion and day-to-day operations. It's not known whether he'll have a meaningful voice immediately.
--Heat president Pat Riley said signing G Shaun Livingston is a "dead issue" right now because Miami would have to clear a roster spot. The Heat is $415,000 from kicking in the punitive dollar-for-dollar luxury tax. Owner Micky Arison has said he doesn't want to go over the tax unless it's a difference-maker.
--G Dwyane Wade called a team meeting before training camp. Wade was a quiet leader in past years who took a back seat to Shaquille O'Neal. Now it's Wade's team.
"I think being in the Olympics started me on that path of being a leader," he said.
--Coach Erik Spoelstra has given each player an iPod Touch that has the entire playbook on it as well as personalized video. The iPods are property of the team and must be returned at season's end.
QUOTE TO NOTE: "I was just saying the other day there's guys that have been in the league 10, 11 years that can't score as well as him." -- F Udonis Haslem on rookie F Michael Beasley.
