Three Things NBA Preview: Miami Heat
Three Things NBA Preview: Miami Heat
As I detailed a few weeks back, I’m re-appropriating the Three Things I Noticed on League Pass format to preview the upcoming season. Instead of three things I noticed, it’ll be something more along the lines of three things I’m looking forward to, interested in, or want to see. Or something like that.
The schedule for those posts will be as follows (with links for completed posts):
Sept. 30-Oct. 4: Pacific Division (GSW, LAC, LAL, PHX, SAC)
Oct. 7-11: Northwest Division (DEN, MIN, OKC, POR, UTA)
Oct. 14-18: Southwest Division (DAL, HOU, MEM, NOP, SAS)
So without further ado, let’s get to the Miami Heat.
Where are we going?
For like the ninth consecutive year, I have no idea what to make of the Heat.
Look at their last six seasons: In 2018-19, they were 39-043 and missed the playoffs. In 2019-20, they went 44-29 and finished fifth in the East, then made a run to the Finals in the bubble. With higher expectations the following season, they went 40-32 and finished sixth, then got swept out of the first round. Naturally, they had the best record in the East in 2021-22, only to lose to the Celtics in the Eastern Conference Finals. They followed that up by... slumping to 44-38 and only making the playoffs by winning in the play-in — and then naturally went back to the Finals, this time as the No. 8 seed. And then last year, they went 46-36 and got demolished by the Celtics in the first round.
What are you supposed to expect from a team like that? Especially after it lets a key contributor like Caleb Martin leave, has its team president call out its best player in a postseason press conference, and takes in the draft a 20-year-old big man who in the best case scenario is probably the backup to your second-best player and occasionally his frontcourt parter?
Where is this team going? What does it want to accomplish? We know the Heat want to win and win big, but what exactly is the plan to do so? How are they going to be better offensively than they were last year? The answer to basically every question about them basically has to be, “Well, if Jimmy stays healthy…” and that is really just not an actual answer. They have made a few deep runs over the last few years, obviously, but almost always by flipping a switch once they got to the playoffs; and you can’t always count on that. And you especially can’t count on that when…
Jimmy Butler, (technically) in a contract year
Pat Riley had a lost to say about Jimmy Buckets in his end-of-season presser.
“That's a big decision on our part to commit those kinds of resources unless you have somebody who's going to be there and available every single night. That's the truth.
That was in reference to a potential contract extension, which obviously never came.
“We've got a really good group of guys and the No. 1 issue is player availability and having your guys healthy to play every night. And we have to wrap our arms around that notion.”
Asked to respond to when Butler said during the playoffs, “if I was playing, Boston would be at home, New York damn sure would ... be at home,” here’s how Riley responded:
“I thought, ‘Is that Jimmy trolling or is that Jimmy serious?’ If you're not on the court playing against Boston or on the court playing against the New York Knicks, you should keep your mouth shut on the criticism of those teams.”
Surely, this will all go over smoothly and there will be no issues. It’s not like there have ever been any issues when Jimmy doesn’t get the contract he wants. There is absolutely nothing to worry about here. Not at all. Everything is fine.
The Youths, ready?
This is basically the theory for how the Heat get better: Jaime Jaquez and Nikola Jovic take steps forward, Kel’el Ware is ready to play — and play well — right away, and Tyler Herro stays healthy, takes on an even larger offensive burden and raises his efficiency while also becoming less of a negative defender.
That’s a lot that needs to go right. And we have to remember that as well as Jaquez and Jovic played for stretches of last season, development is not always linear. The Heat should know; look what happened in Herro’s sophomore season after his breakout in the bubble. You’d like to think that Jaquez and Jovic will be much-improved this year. Maybe they will be. But it’s not guaranteed.
If these guys are up for the task, then I’m probably wrong about what to expect from this team. If they’re not (or if Butler can’t stay on the court, or even if he can and they are but the personal dynamics of the team throw things off), we could be looking at a lot of change next summer.