"We're kind of mutants," Goran Dragic says in his own version of a left-handed compliment. "We do it differently."

He was talking about lefties in general, the Miami Heat in specific, a team with five that can comprise it own left-handed lineup.

And "mutants" might not be that far off. According to University College London neuropsychologist Chris McManus, between 20,000 and 100,000 years ago a second mutation entered the human gene pool that canceled out the brain's natural bias towards right-handedness.

Putting aside the science, because this is, after all, about sports, there is something decidedly different about the roster team President Pat Riley has put together at 601 Biscayne Boulevard.

Roughly 12 percent of the world's population is believed to be left-handed. This season's Heat roster will be at least 33 percent. The starting lineup, with Dragic and Chris Bosh, will be 40 percent lefty. And when factoring in Josh McRoberts, Justise Winslow and Tyler Johnson, Erik Spoelstra's primary rotation could be 50 percent lefty.

The Heat's lefties (clockwise from top left): Goran Dragic, Josh McRoberts, Tyler Johnson, Chris Bosh and Justise Winslow. The Heat's lefties (clockwise from top left): Goran Dragic, Josh McRoberts, Tyler Johnson, Chris Bosh and Justise Winslow.

"I love it," Spoelstra says with a smile. "I like playing with lefties. Yeah, I want to add some lefties to my coaching staff now."

Although Dragic says he's played with eight left-handed teammates on the Slovenian national team -- "It's probably something in the food over there" -- McRoberts says he's never seen anything quite like this, a primary rotation that so leans to the left.

"I'm pretty confident saying this is the first time I've had five lefties," says McRoberts, a veteran of six NBA teams.

While Johnson points out that the Heat also featured five lefties last season when counting since-released forward Michael Beasley, the left-handed balance this season is to the extreme.

"We actually have one at every position, so it works out perfectly," Johnson says.

And he's right. There's Bosh at center, McRoberts at power forward, Winslow at small forward, Johnson at shooting guard and Dragic at point guard.

"I'd like to see it," Bosh says. "Why not? Just to do it, at least in preseason, just to say we did it."

Except the five lefties aren't all lefties. The only thing McRoberts does left-handed is shoot a basketball. That's it.

"In almost virtually everything he does, except for he shoots the ball left-handed," Spoelstra says. "But he will bat right-handed, he will throw a football right-handed, golf right-handed. It's one of those interesting contradictions."

As with many lefty-righty decisions, it just sort of happened, mutated, if you will.

"I think I shot with two hands when I was a real little kid, so they just made me left-handed shooting," McRoberts says. "I shot probably with more of my left hand on the ball. I don't know. It was before I even remember. But I've always shot a basketball left-handed. But I pitch right-handed. I do everything right-handed."

Similarly, while Dragic might break you down left-handed off the dribble, he breaks bread right-handed.

"Eat, that is the only thing," he says of going right-handed. "That was the culture back home.

"When I was a kid, they were always saying, 'If you eat with your left hand, it's ugly.' Then I started eating right-handed. My mom, when she was young, she's left-handed, too, and she had to learn to write right-handed in school."

Then there is Bosh and his unique crossover.

"I throw a Frisbee right-handed," he says. "I don't know why. Yeah, it's weird."

Weird. The lefties say they get that a lot. They say it's also quite possibly true.

"I feel like lefties just kind of move different," Johnson says. "The way they move is all kind of unorthodox."

And they don't shoot straight, either, according to Dragic.

"If you look at left-handers," he says, "we don't shoot like right-handers. Our body is always rotated a little bit. And when you see a right-hander, they're always straight, squared in their shooting. So that's interesting for me, because I tried to shoot like that, squared up. I couldn't."

There have, of course, long been generalizations about lefties. "More skilled," according to one study. "High achievers," according to another. Accident prone. Awkward.

As for the science? Per one piece in Scientific American: "Left-handers' brains are structured differently from right-handers' in ways that can allow them to process language, spatial relations and emotions in more diverse and potentially creative ways."

(Editor's note: The author of this story is left-handed, and insisted on quoting that specific study.)

Of course, Slate quotes another report that notes: "Lefties have higher rates of high blood pressure, irritable bowel syndrome, and schizophrenia."

(Editor's note, too: The author of this story suggested excising the above paragraph if the story was deemed too long.)

From a basketball perspective, as Spoelstra notes, "You're used to playing guys with the right hand."

And lefties go left. A lot.

"When I was younger," Johnson says, "I would do a whole circle around the court going left before I started to go right."

Dragic almost always finishes left.

Bosh? He prefers going right.

"I'm the exception," he says.

For his part, Winslow says scouting reports even in the levels below the NBA are too advanced for a lefty to go undetected.

"I feel like I've played at levels where everybody knows I'm left-handed," the rookie says, "so I don't think it's new to anybody."

To Dragic, it's always new, every time.