Associated Press

San Antonio Spurs (19-21, 12th in the Western Conference) vs. Miami Heat (20-20, ninth in the Eastern Conference)

Miami; Sunday, 3 p.m. EST

BOTTOM LINE: Miami takes on San Antonio looking to stop its three-game home slide.

The Heat have gone 10-8 at home. Miami is 10-11 against opponents over .500.

The Spurs have gone 7-11 away from home. San Antonio ranks fourth in the Western Conference with 45.5 rebounds per game led by Victor Wembanyama averaging 10.8.

The Heat are shooting 45.6% from the field this season, 0.1 percentage points lower than the 45.7% the Spurs allow to opponents. The Spurs average 13.7 made 3-pointers per game this season, 0.2 more makes per game than the Heat give up.

TOP PERFORMERS: Tyler Herro is shooting 47.7% and averaging 24.2 points for the Heat.

Wembanyama is averaging 24.5 points, 10.8 rebounds, 3.7 assists and 4.1 blocks for the Spurs.

LAST 10 GAMES: Heat: 4-6, averaging 110.1 points, 42.9 rebounds, 28.4 assists, 7.6 steals and 4.4 blocks per game while shooting 46.9% from the field. Their opponents have averaged 114.2 points per game.

Spurs: 4-6, averaging 112.0 points, 47.6 rebounds, 28.3 assists, 7.4 steals and 7.0 blocks per game while shooting 44.8% from the field. Their opponents have averaged 112.3 points.

INJURIES: Heat: Dru Smith: out for season (achilles), Josh Richardson: day to day (heel).

Spurs: Jeremy Sochan: day to day (back).

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The Associated Press created this story using technology provided by Data Skrive and data from Sportradar.

The lawyer for Xavier Lucas says the ex-Wisconsin player is transferring to Miami, even though the cornerback’s former school never entered his name into the portal.

Darren Heitner has been representing Lucas, who indicated on social media last month that Wisconsin was refusing to put his name in the portal and that it was hindering his ability to talk to other schools. Lucas had announced earlier in December that he planned to enter the portal.

The NCAA issued a statement Friday saying that “NCAA rules do not prevent a student-athlete from unenrolling from an institution, enrolling at a new institution and competing immediately.”

Yahoo Sports first reported Lucas’ plans to transfer to Miami, as well as the NCAA statement.

Wisconsin officials didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. Yahoo and the Wisconsin State Journal have reported that Lucas had entered into an agreement to continue playing for Wisconsin before requesting the transfer.

Heitner said in an X post that Lucas had agreed to a memorandum of understanding that was conditioned on the approval of the House settlement — which calls for schools to pay players directly for use of their name, image and likeness — and Lucas attending classes no later than this spring. Heitner added that Lucas has since unenrolled from Wisconsin.

Heitner also said that Lucas hasn’t received any money from Wisconsin and therefore owes no money to the school.

Lucas, who is from Pompano Beach, Florida, had 12 tackles, an interception and a sack as a freshman for Wisconsin this season.

The Miami Dolphins’ 2024 season was disappointing for sure, but it most definitely wasn’t boring.

Between off-the-field incidents, some bizarre situations involving big-name veterans and an opening-day scene straight out of a movie, this wasn’t your run-of-the-mill NFL season.

So then, here it is, our list of the 10 biggest Dolphins stories of 2024:

This is a pretty easy choice, no? And any quarterback missing six games with injuries would be the top story for most teams, but it’s especially so when that quarterback has the kind of injury history (particuarly with concussions) that Tua Tagovailoa. This actually was a three-part story with the concussion against Buffalo, his impressive return against the Arizona Cardinals, and then the hip injury that cost him the final two games of the 2024 season.

Making the Tua story even bigger was how much the offense struggled without him in the lineup from Week 3-7, and it sure didn’t help that the Dolphins went through three other quarterbacks during that span between Skylar Thompson, Tim Boyle and Tyler Huntley.

Sure, this was a massively overblown story because expectations all along should have been modest for Beckham based on his previous few seasons. But he’s a big-name player who once was among the best in the NFL at his position, and star power sells. Maybe the biggest part of this story, other than Beckham being waived at his request, was GM Chris Grier admitting the Dolphins knew that Beckham might not be ready for the start of the regular season after undergoing a knee procedure in the offseason.

Calais Campbell’s performance at the age of 37 alone was worthy of constant attention, but the drama surrounding the NFL trade deadline added an interesting twist. Campbell made no secret of the fact he still played in 2024 because he’s looking for a ring and the Dolphins were ready to trade at the deadline when they were 2-6 until Mike McDaniel insisted he be kept because he was confident a turnaround was on the horizon and Campbell would be needed. In the end, the Dolphins did turn things around, just not enough for them to get into the playoffs and keeping Campbell until the end cost him his chance at chasing a ring in the playoffs.

Beckham was one of the four players who began the regular season on the Physically Unable to Perform list and once the four — Bradley Chubb, Isaiah Wynn and Cameron Goode were the others — were eligible to return, this became a weekly watch as to when each would return to practice. In the end, all made their way back to the 53-man roster except for Chubb.

What happened with Tyreek Hill being detained by police for speeding outside of Hard Rock Stadium and thrown to the ground, and then handcuffed being placed on Campbell for stopping to see how he could help always will rank as one of the wildest game-day incidents in Dolphins history.

For all the talk of the Dolphins not making their players more accountable, the team sure didn’t play games with linebacker David Long Jr. After he was voted a team captain at the start of his second season with the team, the veteran first was demoted in favor of Anthony Walker Jr. and later waive when the Dolphins claimed fellow linebacker Tyrel Dodson. It was quite the fall from grace.

Injuries are a part of the NFL, but the Dolphins caught a really, really bad break during the week of Tagovailoa’s return when team MVP Zach Sieler caught a finger in the eye and caused an injury serious enough that he was forced to miss two games. Perhaps not coincidentally, the defense didn’t hold up its end in either of those two games against Arizona and the Buffalo Bills and the Dolphins lost despite strong efforts by Tagovailoa and the offense.

Yeah, that Shaq Barrett saga was something. He pretty much was forgotten by the time Thanksgiving week rolled around, everyone now OK with the idea he had decided to abruptly retire before the start of training camp after signing with the Dolphins in the offseason. But then Barrett decided he indeed wanted to resume playing, with the Dolphins forced to make a quick decision on whether they activate him, keep him on the Retired list or waive him so he could sign with another team. The Dolphins choose a combination of B and C, making him a bit before waiving him (with a non-injury settlement likely involving some reimbursement of his signing bonus money).

For the last story, we bypassed the bizarre Blake Ferguson saga that ended with him sidelined for the final 12 games after his coaches kept telling the media the long-snapper likely would return at some point in favor of the sad story of Jaelan Phillips seeing his hard work to come back from an Achilles tendon injury go to waste with an unfortunate misstep in the Monday night game against the Tennessee Titans that resulted in a torn ACL.