The Eastern Conference has looked weak to begin the year, and the Miami Heat are lingering around in the standings. Their 6-7 record has somehow been good enough to take advantage of the rest of the East’s struggles, as they currently sit in the fifth seed.
However, they are 4-6 over their last 10 games, and plenty of flaws have surfaced. The Heat have not seen the best of their Jimmy Butler, Bam Adebayo, Tyler Herro and Terry Rozier core together. Outside of Herro’s All-Star worthy campaign, each of the remaining three have had their struggles. Coach Erik Spoelstra is still doing his best to shuffle together his strongest rotation, with size still being a glaring issue.
With the mediocrity continuing for the organization, it doesn’t seem like Pat Riley and the front office are ready to look for outside improvement. According to ESPN’s Tim Bontemps, they don’t seem to be in any rush to make a trade:
“Given the extraordinarily forgiving nature of the East, don’t expect Miami to make any early moves. Entering the season, the Heat wanted to see how their roster would look and then evaluate from there. That thought process hasn’t changed.”
It’s been perfectly clear throughout the six years of this Heat build that they want to see this roster through. The “run it back” method of approaching free agency and the trade markets has been in part of injuries and availability issues. However, Miami’s core has been relatively healthy this year, with still the same struggles being shown on the court.
They haven’t been able to get the job done on their home court and/or against winning teams. Butler missed four straight games following a minor ankle injury, and Rozier just missed his first due to foot pain. But, for the most part, the team’s best players have been playing together.
There has been other brief time off amongst the rotation players like Kevin Love, Jaime Jaquez Jr. and Josh Richardson. Even so, this squad SHOULD still have the talent, depth and coaching to get the job done.
Kel’el Ware’s drafting has been a head scratcher, considering that he hasn’t received much playing time. Something doesn’t quite add up on taking a talented player 15th overall in the NBA lottery, just to have him benched on a “win-now” team. Their financial situation also seems difficult to maneuver much improvement, being so close to the second apron.
Whatever the case may be, there are still more creative avenues Riley and management can go to make roster improvements. If he hasn’t been enticed to do so after yet another slow start to the season, at what point is the trigger going to be pulled?
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If they aren’t concerned about trading to improve the team’s interior defense and rebounding, they aren’t serious about competing and are doing nothing more than gaslighting the fans.
I think a year and a half ago, the Heat were coming off a trip to the Finals and planning to trade the young guys for Dame, and build around Dame, Butler, and Bam.
Since that trade fell apart, I think the Heat are basically treading water until the Jimmy Butler contract expires. I would love to see them trade Butler to a team like Houston or Minnesota for a stack of young prospects. But whether it’s out of loyalty to Jimmy (who is a top-5 Heat player of all time) or because he doesn’t have the trade value, that doesn’t seem to be the plan.
So I think the Heat are in a “soft rebuild”, and are just waiting for the Butler contract to expire this year, and the Duncan and Rozier contracts to expire next year, so they can build around Herro, Bam, and the young guys.
Until then, we can either wait for the vets to get traded (which seems unlikely), or root for as much success as possible for the next couple years until the Heat are in a position to add players via free agency
sunman and i are