After winning the league’s Sixth Man of the Year award in 2021-22, Miami Heat guard Tyler Herro campaigned to enter the starting lineup heading into his fourth season.
“In some way, I would like to start,” he said in June of 2022. “I think it’s my fourth year, so I think I’ve earned it, and we’ll see what happens.”
He evidently earned it, starting all of his 67 games in 2022-23, putting together similar numbers on slightly less usage before suffering a season-ending hand injury in the postseason. He battled injury again in 2023-24, where he was sidelined for 40 games, before parlaying his growth as a shotmaker into the best season of his career last year. Herro averaged 23.9 points on 60.5 percent true shooting, being named a first-time All-Star.
However, Herro, once again, has battled injuries this season. He’s missed all but 13 games with ankle/toe/rib injuries. He recently returned from a 15-game absence with head coach Erik Spoelstra easing him back into the rotation, playing 23 minutes apiece in a pair of blowout wins for the Heat.
Though a recent role change for the recently turned 26-year-old guard should be permanent for the foreseeable future, barring injury.
Why Heat should continue bringing Tyler Herro off bench:
For the better part of the last two games, Herro was in complete control offensively. He tallied 24 points on 9-of-14 shooting against Atlanta on Friday before following up with 14 points with six dimes against Memphis.
Most importantly, the seventh-year guard looked comfortable off the bench — similarly to when he was the league’s best bench guard a half-decade ago. Herro was ignitable and was put in contexts where he was allowed to be the primary engine and develop rhythm.
Obviously, the stress that Herro and Norman Powell apply together on opposing defenses as shotmakers makes them a tantalizing combination. But both being poor defenders and average — at best — playmakers creates a level of imbalance; both attract gravity as floor spacers, but still need the rock in their hands to possess any intrinsic value.
That’s not to say they haven’t worked together; in a small sample, they have, posting a plus-5.6 NET in just 151 minutes. However, staggering Herro and Powell alongside the likes of Pelle Larsson, Jaime Jaquez Jr., Andrew Wiggins, Kel’el Ware and Kasparas Jakucionis — while sprinkling their minutes together, as Herro begins to ramp up for 25-30-plus minutes per night — may be the best for both worlds.
At least one of them, alongside the aforementioned names (plus Adebayo) creates a stronger balance between the starters and the bench. Miami’s bench has largely been one of its strengths this season — and bringing a 20-point-per-game scorer off the bench for 25-30 minutes a night doesn’t sound that bad comparatively to lineups when the defense (with Herro-Powell) is compromised.
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Heat’s top scorers in the paint
Jaquez 10.3 paint points per game
Herro 10
Bam 8.3
Powell 8.2
Miami is top ten (#9) in the league in points in the paint differential – per 100 possessions, they score 2.4 points more in the paint than they give up (last year they had a negative 1.8 differential)
PITP differential top 10 teams. This list includes the top 7 defensive teams in the league, two contenders NYK and CLE with defenses just outside the top 10, and one outlier, New Orleans
Detroit +14.2
OKC +9.2
CLE +5.9
SAS +5.2
TOR +4.8
NOP +4.5
BOS +4 (#24 in paint scoring, but #7 in DRTG)
HOU +3.4
MIA +2.4
NYK +2.2
There’s an interesting article in allucanheat today that discusses the very good chance that Miami will lose both Wiggins and Powell this summer.
Another Heat disaster could be setting up before their eyes
The Heat could be in for a disappointing summer.
Following are are few excerpts:
“Wiggins has a player option, and the Heat are basically betting against him opting out of the final year of his deal. But that’s far from a guarantee, considering Wiggins is having a superb season with the Heat, and there’s a good likelihood that he could command a multi-year deal during the offseason.
There have already been strong whispers of that possibility.
On the other hand, Powell is a much greater risk for the Heat. He’s an outright unrestricted free agent this summer, and while he’s said all the right things about potentially signing an extension with the Heat, there’s still a very real chance Miami may not be all that willing to give him the offer that he’s going to be looking for.”…
“In the end, there’s a chance that the Heat could be without a superstar and lose out on both Wiggins and Powell. If that’s the way the offseason would play out, it would be a disastrous outcome for Miami.
And, quietly, things may already be setting up for that doomsday scenario.”
Let’s hope that doesn’t come to pass.
Interesting article on Jovic in Yardbarker: “Nikola Jovic is not a good Heat player”
Its worth a couple of minutes of your time. Jovic feels he needs more minutes in order to break out of his slump. Why in tf doesn’t Spo send him down to G League for a few weeks to get those minutes, rather than having him sitting on the end of the bench and waiting for his $62.4 million contract to kick in?
https://www.yardbarker.com/nba/articles/nikola_jovic_is_not_a_good_heat_player/s1_17324_43496659
Well, I don’t know.
He doesn’t have ball in his hands, because others have it. That takes away his ability to distribute, which is his main strength. Nobody sends the ball in his direction lately, because he shoots terribly, and we know, that he cant get an offensive rebound. He is a bad finisher, and he made maybe 50 % of his free throws lately.
That all makes him an offensive liability.
I believe he is better in defense, maybe better than he ever was, especially defending the perimeter. But still not a great defender.
I bet 2-3 weeks in Sioux Falls playing 30 minutes a night will help him find his game. What concerns me is that he sees himself as more of a finesse SF than a physical PF.
Miami needs an interior defender, rebounder, scorer more than a finesse (soft) big man. He has to adjust to Miami’s needs and expectations not the other way around.
Projected 2026-2027 Salary Cap Levels:
FOOD FOR THOUGHT
It appears as though Miami can keep Wiggins, Powell and Herro if all three accept team friendly contracts. I’m thinking Herro 4 years/$140M, Wiggins and Powell 3 years/ $90M. Those 3, plus Bam ($49.8M) and Jovic ($16.2M), would still provide plenty of room to keep the rest of the players under existing contracts as well as this year’s draft pick and a couple of minimum salary players to round out the roster, while remaining under the luxury tax threshold.
In the event a ss becomes available, there would be plenty of players and draft picks available to accommodate a trade.
Two elite shooters and floor spacers in Herro and Powell – shooting fixes everything. Powell in particular doesn’t need the ball to be effective (shot 45% on catch and shoot 3s last year), and he’s leading the league for the second year in a row in points per touch. His average time per touch is even less than last year in LAC, down from 2.99 seconds to 2.5 this year with Miami
https://www.nba.com/stats/players/touches?CF=TOUCHES*GE*2000&PerMode=Totals&PlayerPosition=G&Season=2025-26&dir=D&sort=PTS_PER_TOUCH
Powell and Harden together was a #3 defense for LAC last year, because they were surrounded with elite POA defenders (Kris Dunn, Derrick Jones Jr) and an all-defensive team center (Zubac), which Miami also has in Davion, Wiggins and Bam. The best Heat lineup includes Herro and Powell, interested to see how they make it work. Heat are still #1 in pace so if they make the playoffs they will need to continue to play a deeper rotation than other teams, like Indiana did last year. No Heat player is over 31 mpg currently (Wiggins and Bam both at 31)
There is a deeper question here. Does Riley intend to keep/extend Herro, Powell or both. If it’s only one, the one he intends to keep should start. The other one should come off the bench. Playing the two together may do more harm than good defensively.
Personally, I like Herro coming in off the bench. His offensive style is less restricted playing with the second unit and his defensive shortcomings are not as apparent. The first time Spo plays them together and it
doesn’t work should be the last time. Why spoil a good thing?
Yes, that’s the question. Amongst our group here there is some disagreement on this issue. I fall on the side of keeping him on the second team.
My reasons align some with this article. The biggest reason is Ty presents a similar offensive threat to Norm and spreading that out seems more advantageous as they do have some similarity in their skillsets and no one else has quite as much firepower as either one of them when a basket is needed. That, and the fact that the second team has almost as good of secondary scoring so both offenses will be less prone to down periods.
Also, neither Ty or Norm are the ball handlers Davion and Dru are and when that skill is needed (only when it’s hard to bring the ball upcourt) and turnovers will be minimized. Third, having Ty on the court over Davion against the opponents first team is often challenging and isn’t as disadvantageous with second teamers.
For all those reasons I would like us to continue to use Ty off the bench. Having said all that, I doubt they won’t start Herro very soon.
I m with you.
I believe Kas has rightfully moved ahead of Dru. He has shown he can handle and distribute, has good size, and more offense. Certainly not as good defensively as Dru, but is decent, aggressive, and has quick hands for steals.
Plus, he’s a much better 3 point shooter (45.3% to 30.4%). Dru is an excellent third string insurance back-up PG. He’s on a cheap 3 year contract. Finally, Jakucionis is only 19 (Dru is 28) and has a much higher ceiling than Dru.
That might be so.