2025 Regular Season Thread Vol. 7 - It’s about to go down

[contract]

I'm honestly starting to believe our offensive problem is Spo and not the players. I see teams with worst offensive talent scoring more than us.

Worse offensive talent than we have? Maybe if they play at a higher pace than we do.

[Shootit]

We're going nowhere fast.

The most important thing on a NBA team in this era is having a guy that can create offense. For himself and others. A player with a skill/size/athleticism/speed advantage that just is very hard for defenses to stop.

We have zero of that.

Once you have that offensive engine, all the role players and betas can live and thrive off him. Without him them mostly look helpless and overmatched.

Jimmy wasn't a great engine, but he's closer to anyone we have.

This season could end ugly, a bunch of limited players spinning their wheels.

Th scary thing is - i'm not sure next season will look much better.

Front office not getting in front of the Jimmy mess really put us in tough spot, insted of using Jimmy's trade to jump start the next era by acquiring a younger offensive engine, we end up with more role players.

Not that I disagree with your last sentence, but I felt Jimmy had that baggage in any trade due to his history. He will always be the best player in the deal, but comes with the risk of going sour.
Even if Miami was to move him last offseason, I felt Jimmy would of pulled the same, I'll only go here or there type of talk, limiting his value.

[3ballbomber]

We're going nowhere fast.

The most important thing on a NBA team in this era is having a guy that can create offense. For himself and others. A player with a skill/size/athleticism/speed advantage that just is very hard for defenses to stop.

We have zero of that.

Once you have that offensive engine, all the role players and betas can live and thrive off him. Without him them mostly look helpless and overmatched.

Jimmy wasn't a great engine, but he's closer to anyone we have.

This season could end ugly, a bunch of limited players spinning their wheels.

Th scary thing is - i'm not sure next season will look much better.

Front office not getting in front of the Jimmy mess really put us in tough spot, insted of using Jimmy's trade to jump start the next era by acquiring a younger offensive engine, we end up with more role players.

That is until our nxt spectacular win & suddenly our team again may be good after all.

[RexBoyWonder]

We're going nowhere fast.

The most important thing on a NBA team in this era is having a guy that can create offense. For himself and others. A player with a skill/size/athleticism/speed advantage that just is very hard for defenses to stop.

We have zero of that.

Once you have that offensive engine, all the role players and betas can live and thrive off him. Without him them mostly look helpless and overmatched.

Jimmy wasn't a great engine, but he's closer to anyone we have.

This season could end ugly, a bunch of limited players spinning their wheels.

Th scary thing is - i'm not sure next season will look much better.

Front office not getting in front of the Jimmy mess really put us in tough spot, insted of using Jimmy's trade to jump start the next era by acquiring a younger offensive engine, we end up with more role players.

That is until our nxt spectacular win & suddenly our team again may be good after all.

Sadly - No.

Sure we can have some nice wins by hitting a ton of 3's and X and Y player stepping up on a certain night - but we won't have SUSTAINED success without that reliable offensive star.

Spo is having a terrible season IMO, his worst probably. But it's not really on him because he needs to mask the biggest hole a team can have - not having an advantage creator on the roster.

[RexBoyWonder]

We're going nowhere fast.

The most important thing on a NBA team in this era is having a guy that can create offense. For himself and others. A player with a skill/size/athleticism/speed advantage that just is very hard for defenses to stop.

We have zero of that.

Once you have that offensive engine, all the role players and betas can live and thrive off him. Without him them mostly look helpless and overmatched.

Jimmy wasn't a great engine, but he's closer to anyone we have.

This season could end ugly, a bunch of limited players spinning their wheels.

Th scary thing is - i'm not sure next season will look much better.

Front office not getting in front of the Jimmy mess really put us in tough spot, insted of using Jimmy's trade to jump start the next era by acquiring a younger offensive engine, we end up with more role players.

Not that I disagree with your last sentence, but I felt Jimmy had that baggage in any trade due to his history. He will always be the best player in the deal, but comes with the risk of going sour.
Even if Miami was to move him last offseason, I felt Jimmy would of pulled the same, I'll only go here or there type of talk, limiting his value.

Sorry but that's a real convenient excuse, Heat marketing team couldn't spin it better.

Jimmy last trade deadline (2024) was considered to be a playoff proven stud, with 1.5-2.5 seasons left on his deal. He was younger, healthier, cleaned his image with all the team success we had here and there's zero doubt we could've gotten a considerably better deal then compared to what we got now.

Getting those couple of extra picks then could've gotten us in the Fox race, and this team will look completely different with a Fox type PG running the show.

Sadly alot of fans got delusional about the return we got.
In reality we got 1 player that was out of the rotation, 1 player that was a solid starter and one that was let go by 2 teams for practically no value in return despite being 26YO.

Not sure if it's fair to expect much at this point. They're doing their best, even Terry.
They simply lack the ability needed to be an above average team in today's league. the front office build a subpar product.

[contract]

Sadly - No.

Sure we can have some nice wins by hitting a ton of 3's and X and Y player stepping up on a certain night - but we won't have SUSTAINED success without that reliable offensive star.

Spo is having a terrible season IMO, his worst probably. But it's not really on him because he needs to mask the biggest hole a team can have - not having an advantage creator on the roster.

I think we're doing OK considering all the drama and the sabotage we've had to deal with so far. We probably finish with 42 or 43 wins, possibly avoiding the play-in in the weak east. That's not too far off from where we were in most years of the Jimmy era during the regular season. I think fans are just panicking a little because it's the first time in years where we don't have that rock to build around.

This isn't the post Big 3 '14-'15 season. That was bad.

[SA37]

85 points the other day, 86 points yesterday. Just incredible to be held to such a low output in a day and age where teams average ~115 points per game.

[Grumpy Heat Fan]

When does Cooper Flagg come into the draft

[MettaWorldPanda]

I really really like what i saw out of Mitchell but the spacing if he can’t make shots consistently could be somewhat of an issue playing with the starting lineup due to lack of spacing with the two bigs. Spo might have to consider keeping Duncan and Herro with Wiggins as the ball handling upgrade over Highsmith from the previous unit. This allows Mitchell to come off the bench and engine the non Herro lineups. Also allows us to bench Rozier.

C Ware C Anderson
PF Bam PF Jovic
SF Wiggins SF JJJ or Highsmith
SG Robinson SG Burks or Larrson
PG Herro PG Mitchell

This depth chart completely isolates Rozier from ever seeing the lineup again. Mitchell can play a heavy role as backup PG with Herro sliding to the two but Spo can have more shooters on the floor with Mitchell.

C Ware
PF Jovic
SF Highsmith
SG Herro
PG Mitchell

Above would be a solid lineup to maximize Mitchell.

[Shootit]

We're going nowhere fast.

The most important thing on a NBA team in this era is having a guy that can create offense. For himself and others. A player with a skill/size/athleticism/speed advantage that just is very hard for defenses to stop.

We have zero of that.

Once you have that offensive engine, all the role players and betas can live and thrive off him. Without him them mostly look helpless and overmatched.

Jimmy wasn't a great engine, but he's closer to anyone we have.

This season could end ugly, a bunch of limited players spinning their wheels.

Th scary thing is - i'm not sure next season will look much better.

Front office not getting in front of the Jimmy mess really put us in tough spot, insted of using Jimmy's trade to jump start the next era by acquiring a younger offensive engine, we end up with more role players.

Not that I disagree with your last sentence, but I felt Jimmy had that baggage in any trade due to his history. He will always be the best player in the deal, but comes with the risk of going sour.
Even if Miami was to move him last offseason, I felt Jimmy would of pulled the same, I'll only go here or there type of talk, limiting his value.

Sorry but that's a real convenient excuse, Heat marketing team couldn't spin it better.

Jimmy last trade deadline (2024) was considered to be a playoff proven stud, with 1.5-2.5 seasons left on his deal. He was younger, healthier, cleaned his image with all the team success we had here and there's zero doubt we could've gotten a considerably better deal then compared to what we got now.

Getting those couple of extra picks then could've gotten us in the Fox race, and this team will look completely different with a Fox type PG running the show.

Sadly alot of fans got delusional about the return we got.
In reality we got 1 player that was out of the rotation, 1 player that was a solid starter and one that was let go by 2 teams for practically no value in return despite being 26YO.

Not sure if it's fair to expect much at this point. They're doing their best, even Terry.
They simply lack the ability needed to be an above average team in today's league. the front office build a subpar product.

So, when it went public that the Heat wanted to move Butler in the offseason, you think he would of been fine and playing along with the front office helping us get the best deal possible by being on his best behavior?
Or would it be leaking that he wouldn't entertain re-signing with teams X, Y & Z and only wanted to go to teams A, B,C which already were set going into 24-25? C'mon, I still like Jimmy, but the guy would of always had some type of reduced value in a trade. Last thing a handful of teams wanted was the Jimmy we saw the past few months of his tenure here or the guy in Minnesota.
Could we gotten someone better than Wiggins? Sure. But I got the Heat wanting to keep him to see if they could of gotten 1 more good year out of him.

[Grumpy Heat Fan]

Read on Twitter

I doubt anyone need any indepth metrics to know Rozier is trash. I'm amazed someone dugg into deep metrics in Rozier

Why did Rozier have a good rep around the league and why was he balling before coming here??

what happened

[Bmaster]

Read on Twitter

I doubt anyone need any indepth metrics to know Rozier is trash. I'm amazed someone dugg into deep metrics in Rozier

Why did Rozier have a good rep around the league and why was he balling before coming here??

what happened

FBI and point shaving

[Grumpy Heat Fan]

I doubt anyone need any indepth metrics to know Rozier is trash. I'm amazed someone dugg into deep metrics in Rozier

Why did Rozier have a good rep around the league and why was he balling before coming here??

what happened

FBI and point shaving

yeah

also looking at his career stats, dude is a horrific shooter....... in terms of FG%.

[3ammy3uck3ts]

With us struggling im curious to see if Ware gets the boot from the starting lineup with Spo going back to his roots:

Mitchell
Herro
Duncan
Wiggins
Bam

Not advocating for it but I could see it happening.

[caliban]

If Bam can't play PF on offense there's that or trading him

[Flash4thewin]

Look it's ok to not will every game. Some times things happen, your shooters are off but man the effort and hustle was just straight out bad last night. And thats facing a team without their final MVP, they gave us an old school ass whooping and we just put our back on the ground belly up in the air like a dog being submissive.

[greg4012]

Read on Twitter

Defense hasn’t been the issue, we’re 9th in the league. It’s the garbage offense sitting at 20th (probably worse after tonight) and it hasn’t matter who’s been available or not. Guess we’ll see how it goes at full strength.

We can win alot of game if we hold teams to 103 points, not if we can only put up 85 though. Even last game, 102 for the Nets but we can only put up 86 and that’s with Herro.

Defense hasn't been the issue, but the eye test clearly shows that Miami has a lot of low hanging fruit to improve on defense. Fully integrating the new guys and minimizing Terry's role should lead to A LOT less wide open lanes for the perimeter players to walk into the paint and generate looks. Should also lead to A LOT less opportunities for NBA players to take practice shots from 3 untouched until they catch fire.

Can't expect some crazy offensive jump when we didn't add real offensive personnel. Wiggins can get some buckets in offensive flow, but he's not a real source of generating offense imo.

With how the roster is constructed, Herro is THE source of offensive creation. That's not good roster construction but its not surprising that him missing leads to league worst levels of offense.

43% of the Heat's current payroll is dedicated to offense only players that are defensive liabilities (Herro, Duncan, and Rozier). That's 43% of the allotted payroll.

Let's take a closer look at this nearly half of the payroll that is meant to specialize in generating offense for Miami:

- Tyler Herro is the highest usage player on the team and is averaging nearly 24 ppg and 5.6 apg. His TS% is 60.8% (median NBA offense has a TS% of 57.7%). VERY GOOD
- Duncan Robinson is a 24 mpg player that averages 10 ppg and 2 assists. His TS% is 57.2% (just below the median), but is trending down at 52% over the last 5 games.
- Terry Rozier is a 29 mpg player that averages 12 ppg and 3 assists. His TS% is 51% (worse than the worst offense in the NBA)

Tyler and Terry are the only real perimeter players with a creation skillset on this team and one of them generates league-worst offense. None of the above 3 help on defense.

Now add in Bam's terrible offensive stretch for the first half of the season--TS% of 53.5% on the season--and it's a recipe for offense to be a disaster. Fortunately, Bam seems to be out of his funk and is hovering around NBA median 57% TS% over the past 20 games or so and inching back to his career average of 59% TS.

If Bam or Herro miss extended time over the back half of the season, Miami will be tanking (whether intentional or not). I really hope neither miss that time. Especially not Herro, as he still needs to prove that he can maintain his improved level of play for an entire season.

[3ammy3uck3ts]

If Bam can't play PF on offense there's that or trading him

Bams been the only one consistently playing well since moving to PF, not that it came because of the move but he hasn’t been the issue. I realize he’s everyone’s favorite scapegoat though

[3ammy3uck3ts]

Read on Twitter

Defense hasn’t been the issue, we’re 9th in the league. It’s the garbage offense sitting at 20th (probably worse after tonight) and it hasn’t matter who’s been available or not. Guess we’ll see how it goes at full strength.

We can win alot of game if we hold teams to 103 points, not if we can only put up 85 though. Even last game, 102 for the Nets but we can only put up 86 and that’s with Herro.

Defense hasn't been the issue, but the eye test clearly shows that Miami has a lot of low hanging fruit to improve on defense. Fully integrating the new guys and minimizing Terry's role should lead to A LOT less wide open lanes for the perimeter players to walk into the paint and generate looks. Should also lead to A LOT less opportunities for NBA players to take practice shots from 3 untouched until they catch fire.

Can't expect some crazy offensive jump when we didn't add real offensive personnel. Wiggins can get some buckets in offensive flow, but he's not a real source of generating offense imo.

With how the roster is constructed, Herro is THE source of offensive creation. That's not good roster construction but its not surprising that him missing leads to league worst levels of offense.

43% of the Heat's current payroll is dedicated to offense only players that are defensive liabilities (Herro, Duncan, and Rozier). That's 43% of the allotted payroll.

Let's take a closer look at this nearly half of the payroll that is meant to specialize in generating offense for Miami:

- Tyler Herro is the highest usage player on the team and is averaging nearly 24 ppg and 5.6 apg. His TS% is 60.8% (median NBA offense has a TS% of 57.7%). VERY GOOD
- Duncan Robinson is a 24 mpg player that averages 10 ppg and 2 assists. His TS% is 57.2% (just below the median), but is trending down at 52% over the last 5 games.
- Terry Rozier is a 29 mpg player that averages 12 ppg and 3 assists. His TS% is 51% (worse than the worst offense in the NBA)

Tyler and Terry are the only real perimeter players with a creation skillset on this team and one of them generates league-worst offense. None of the above 3 help on defense.

Now add in Bam's terrible offensive stretch for the first half of the season--TS% of 53.5% on the season--and it's a recipe for offense to be a disaster. Fortunately, Bam seems to be out of his funk and is hovering around NBA median 57% TS% over the past 20 games or so and inching back to his career average of 59% TS.

If Bam or Herro miss extended time over the back half of the season, Miami will be tanking (whether intentional or not). I really hope neither miss that time. Especially not Herro, as he still needs to prove that he can maintain his improved level of play for an entire season.

Hoping for the best, prepared for the worst. 5 games after the ASB are the Raptors, bucks, Hawks twice, and Pacers. Come out of that with a losing record and I’m going full blown tank to give ourselves better assets. Would love to get more playoff basketball in but from an asset standpoint we need good picks to get something meaningful done this summer

[greg4012]

If Bam can't play PF on offense there's that or trading him

As evidenced by his best stretch of play of the entire season?