With all the Giannis Antetokounmpo noise surrounding the Miami Heat, some forget that there was another underrated addition for Miami as part of the deal in Bobby Portis.
Miami lost a lot of quality rotation pieces in their haul to the Milwaukee Bucks. There’s still a lot more work to be done, but getting their hands on Portis was a terrific sweetener in this deal— and a crucial one for their revamped depth chart.
Portis, at 31 years old, is a quality veteran big man with championship experience. At 6-foot-9, he can play either power forward or center position and get plugged in alongside each of Antetokounmpo or Bam Adebayo off the bench. He is coming off an impressive shooting year in the 2025-26 campaign, going 46% from 3-point range.
Bobby Portis averaged 13.7 points and 6.4 rebounds on 49% shooting overall in 24 minutes across 67 games played last season.
A team built around Antetokounmpo and Adebayo will need all the shooting that they can get. And that’s the biggest strength of Portis’ game. He can finish at the rim, mid range or spread the floor from beyond the arc with his shooting touch.
Portis may not an elite defender, but he brings energy and toughness. In a bench role, that is a valuable rotation player to have on a squad with championship aspirations. That type of physicality made him a fan favorite in Milwaukee over the years.
The Heat went a full season last year without properly addressing their backup big hole— instead staggering minutes between Adebayo and Kel’el Ware.
Now, they will have a reliable backup to that frontcourt to call on every night with Portis.
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Hope his excitement leads to a fully focused, max effort season. If so, then he will definitely be an important rotation piece.
What Pat needs to do now is look to get Wiggins to opt out and return on a much lower per year longer term salary so that they can resign Powell.
If Wiggins refuses then Pat should look to move him.
Powell is currently the 3rd most valuable player on this team behind Giannis and Bam and Pat should do whatever is necessary to resign him.
There’s no world in where Wiggins is more valuable to this team than Powell point blank.