Tim_Hardawayy wrote:MartyConlonJr wrote:KissedByaRose1 wrote:Even with the Rozier news I’m absolutely obsessed with your guys over/under at over 36.5 games. Last season’s Butler drama took a ton out of everyone I feel like and there are multiple players either in contract years or in good spots to have bounce back years (Bam/Powell/Rozier/Jaquez. East is awful, heat never tank and Spolestra is still the best coach in basketball.
I put the house on them getting 37+ wins but wana put even more. Anything big im missing here that should have me hold off
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I'd say go look at Pat Riley's last big press conference where he said Miami Heat have only tanked twice, and they never said they were tanking those times, but they were. And that they expect to compete. Zoom in and check if he winked at any point, because it's got me wondering if there wasn't a message in that in which we are gonna tank this year.
I think if this LeBron thing is all smoke and no fire, this could very well be a tank year. I know Powell seems like a win now move, but it could just as easily be another piece to potentially squeeze a draft pick out of a team at the deadline who wants him. He's positive value and we gave up nothing for him.
I should state I don't necessarily think we are tanking, just giving someone with a wad of cash who may not sit there listening to every piece of news and interview enough pause to consider whether to better money on the Heat.
I haven't done my 25-26 prediction because of it. I see a team that got be a 2-3 seed in the East or playing for a top 4 pick with some luck (Heat would struggle to get worse than say 6th worst record unless Bam is out all season).
I'm inclined to be optimistic. They blew 20 double digit leads to lose games, and 18 games where they held 4th quarter leads, mostly due to a lack of offense generation that Powell should help fix. I don't think Jimmy contributed much to their success, they were a <.500 team when he played, had very few spectacular wins (I think there were 2 wins vs good teams, Cavs and Lakers). They missed Wiggins a bit and dealt with him coming back from injury while trying to integrate him, did all they could to recover Terry Rozier's trade value by playing him while extremely unproductive and disruptive. All of the players and coach were mentally drained by the Jimmy saga. Noone got to do a training camp or plan for a team without Jimmy with Herro as the 1 or 1A. Bam had a half season slump before his offense jumped into gear. They got previous little out of Ware in the first half. Almost every player on the roster is young now, in that they should ALL improve from last year (Powell the only guy over 30).
