Former NBA player Gilbert Arenas recently revealed on ‘The OG’s’ podcast that he came close to joining Miami in 2003.

What would’ve been like if the Miami Heat had Gilbert Arenas playing for them? A dominant backcourt duo between Arenas and Dwyane Wade would’ve been sick.

It’s another ‘what if ‘scenario as Miami and Arenas didn’t unite. At that time, Arenas was yet to fully unleash his offensive prowess. Let’s not forget, he began his journey with the Golden State Warriors but truly blossomed when he landed at the Washington Wizards.

According to Arenas, Pat Riley said, “I don’t feel comfortable paying a young guy $55 million who hasn’t proved himself yet.” Miami had Eddie Jones and Caron Butler on the team. A trade would have been necessary for that to work.

Riley wasn’t wrong at the moment, but he turned out to be wrong two years later when Arenas became a machine on the court. He became an All-Star in 2005. In that same year, Wade and Shaquille O’Neal, in his first season with Miami, lost to the Detroit Pistons in the Eastern Conference in seven games. Miami won their first NBA championship the next year by defeating the Dallas Mavericks in six games.

Miami’s victories were without Arenas, but his addition could have made them more formidable. It’s not a stretch to imagine them clinching two or three championships during the Wade and O’Neal era with Arenas on the roster.

Miguel Mike Medina is a contributor to Miami Heat On SI. He can be reached at medinamiguelmike@gmail.com

X: @mmm_sportnfilms, Instagram: @miguel_passionforsports, TikTok: @miguelmikemedina

Just as he did on that memorable night, Ramirez was a catalyst, a useful reference point for the Yellow Football Team’s dynamic attack as they posed IMCF new questions. He thumped home Max Arfsten’s cross to halve the deficit, and cleared space with off-ball runs on the next two game-changing plays.

“We knew when we scored the first goal – we know us,” said Cucho Hernández, whose cross found Diego Rossi for the game-winner. “And we know we did this many times, and we are so happy for that.”

The defending MLS champions flipped the game on its head in a ferocious, dizzying 14-minute span, reeling off three goals and clinging to their sudden lead with frazzled desperation as Miami threw everything at them in the final moments as the stadium transformed from morose to euphoric.

“A hard game against a good team,” said Farsi. “Unfortunately we didn’t start the game very well, but second half, I think we adjust a couple of things and yeah, we put our hearts and we gave everything. At the end of the day, we said, ‘second half, no regrets, we have 45 minutes to come back.’ Even after the second goal, we just kept pushing; we were in this situation before.

“They were pressing man-to-man in the first half, so there’s a lot of space in behind. If we’re able to move the ball right, left, we’re going to create space … and in counterattack as well, I think we had a lot of space.”

When referee Iván Barton blew his whistle for the final time, the noise spiked once more, the Leagues Cup’s reigning holders dethroned.

“I didn’t like the first half. I didn’t like the energy that we had. I was not happy with the energy because we can miss passes, we can miss something tactically and so on, but we need positivity,” said Nancy.

“In the second half, this is who we are. Last year, we had good moments because we came back from behind, so I’m not surprised. I’m really happy to have a game like this, because we suffered, and it was good to have a better competitive spirit and to be front-foot to win the game.”

NORTH MIAMI, Fla. – North Miami leadership has been in the dark during the 10 days since a ransomware demand appeared on city hall computers.

On Tuesday, councilmembers were set to receive a virtual executive session from the city manager, who, for some reason, has withheld details until now, despite calls from both the council and residents for more information.

Councilman Pierre Frantz Charles didn’t say how he’ll log into the virtual meeting with all the computers still dark at City Hall. He didn’t say much of anything to Local 10 News.

“Are you ignoring me?” Reporter Glenna Milberg asked.

”No, I’m not. I think you would be better off (unintelligible),” Frantz Charles replied.

Questions remain about whether the mayor — whose personal Gmail was hacked a month ago — opened that hacked Gmail on city servers, and what the plan is for offline city services.

The police department is using walkie-talkies to dispatch, according to a council member.

“We can say that emergency services and the 911 system are operational, but beyond that, we are not able to go into specifics,” a city spokesperson told Local 10 News.

Several questions remain, including whether the city complied with Florida’s two-year-old cybersecurity law, which requires notifying the state about the breach and fulfilling other obligations.

The law expressly states that cities “may not pay or otherwise comply with a ransom demand.”

It’s not clear how the city plans to move forward. Federal agents are working with city staff to investigate the source of the breach.