Tyler Herro: 'Being healthy is my biggest thing' entering 2024-25 season

While it’s not technically true relative to his peers, the 2023-24 season was an incredibly long one for Miami Heat guard Tyler Herro.

The 24-year-old, looking to prove any naysayers wrong after missing virtually all of the 2023 postseason with a broken hand suffered in Game 1, couldn’t have asked for a much greater start to the season. Through his first seven games, Herro was averaging 25.3 points, 5.6 rebounds, 5.0 assists and 1.4 steals on 44.6 percent shooting, including 41.0 percent from 3-point range (8.1 3PA) and 90.9 percent from the free throw line.

Though Herro suffered an ankle injury on Nov. 8 midway through the first half against the Memphis Grizzlies, which sidelined him for five weeks. He returned, but then suffered a foot injury in late February, which caused him to miss another month before returning for the team’s final 13 games (six regular season, two play-in, five playoff).

During his media day session Monday, Herro spoke about being more motivated to stay healthy this upcoming season.

“Trying to stay healthy is a big thing for me this season,” he said. “Being healthy is my biggest thing, really.”

Herro said he entered Monday weighing 201 pounds after exiting last season weighing 189 pounds, attempting to pack on extra muscle and weight to better sustain the physical toll of an 82-game season.

“I was eating a lot of food this summer. Honestly, I was eating everything,” he said. “This is the heaviest I’ve came into camp in my career. So I’m trying to keep the weight on and be able to stay healthy. I think that will help being more durable–having a little bigger frame throughout an 82-game season. … I’ve put the work in on the court, and in the weight room, it’s about staying healthy and putting that recovery work in as well.”

Over his first four seasons, Herro’s appeared in 76.4, 75, 80.5 and 81.7 percent of Miami’s regular season games, respectively, despite suffering multiple unlucky injuries at crucial moments in the season. During the 2021-22 postseason, he suffered a groin injury in the Eastern Conference Finals before his broken hand in Game 1 of the playoffs in 2023.

While his fit alongside Bam Adebayo and Jimmy Butler hasn’t always been clean, he’s still 24-years-old with room to grow on both sides of the basketball. A big part of that is getting to the rim and free throw line–which he hasn’t done much of throughout his five-year career, respectfully. Miami’s spacing isn’t always functional, but perhaps packing on the extra weight can help him grow in that area–as well as being more physical defensively on- and off-ball.