2025 Miami Heat Regular Season Thread

[3ammy3uck3ts]

If we get Giannis without giving up Ware it’s time to start Edrice at the 3

[Enso]

Lol to get Giannis you'd have to give up Ware as well.

Never

All day!

I don’t want to but if push came to shove i guess I would. We’d need a big man badly after that though.

[3ammy3uck3ts]

Never

All day!

I don’t want to but if push came to shove i guess I would. We’d need a big man badly after that though.

Giannis is an inch shorter than Ware but 15 pounds heavier, he plays bigger than anyone in the roster tbh. Bam/Giannis frontcourt is more than enough size and you give Ware 10 times out of 10 for Giannis no debate. If you can keep him though, great!

[Tim_Hardawayy]

Personally I think marrying ourselves to Davion in the starting lineup because he's having 100% shooting nights is going to come back to bite us in the ass. I'm not necessarily opposed to small ball either, but I'm an advocate of finding ways to get your best 5 on the floor. This happened during the big 3's first season, I was begging to either play Wade/Miller at the 1/2 and limit Chalmers/Bibby/Arroyo minutes, or LeBron/Bosh at the 4/5 and limit Joel Anthony/Big Z/corpse of Dampier minutes. Spo didn't adjust for the entire season, and we had one of the most embarrassing Finals defeats of all time.

I'm not saying this roster should win a championship, the stakes aren't that high this time around. But its the same mistake, fall in love with hustle players (Joel Anthony, Arroyo, UD, the list goes on), force feed them minutes because they aren't making enough mistakes and you don't feel bold enough to just go with your talent, and then when the time comes and you actually need talent, you're running on empty.

Its not like anyone had us higher than a low seed in the playoffs this year though, so if we get shellacked in the second round everyone will applaud and call it a huge victory.

And if Davion keeps this up for the entire season and turns into an all-star making 10 million a season, obviously that's the best case scenario. Saves us a **** of money, doesn't rock the boat at all, keeps a good defensive unit on the floor at all times. I just don't think that's realistic, I don't think he's the Joel Anthony of point guards, but I do think there's going to be a wakeup call when he's asked to do more than dribble down the floor really fast. And the step back 3's in meaningless blowouts are fun, but is he going to be able to hit the open ones when the game is tight and the other team plays off him because they don't respect his J?

EDIT: And to be clear, yes there's a tradeoff if you put Tyler at the 1. But I don't think our defense is solely reliant on Davion there. I think Bam (and Ware when he gets the chance) are a lot more impactful, and the bigger issue is that we don't force guys into bad matchups, which are going to happen with Herro/Mitchell paired. If its just Tyler, both Tyler and Norm can guard guards, and you can even put Tyler onto a weak small forward matchup if that's the weakest player on the floor.

The defense can afford to hide one player, and it can deal with an occasional size mismatch, but you can't simultaneously hide a player AND be dealing with size mismatches, and that's what you get with Herro/Mitchell. Again, if Davion continues to be a neutral to positive on offense maybe that issue solves itself and you deal Tyler. But I've seen him too many times, even for stretches this year, look lost and unable to hit a wide open 3. There are games we lost before Tyler came back where we weren't running and Davion is just useless in the halfcourt. If we go anywhere in the playoffs we're probably facing the Knicks, and Davion does nothing vs Brunson, the Knicks force us into a halfcourt game, and Davion on offense was a drag. If you play him with Tyler, we're getting even more abused defensively. But if you swap him for Tyler, you can hide Tyler on Hart or something, put Norm or even Wiggins on Brunson, and on offense at least you have a guy who can score in the halfcourt. That's just one example. We're like planning our championship parade blowing out a Clippers team that looks like ass this year.

And to be perfectly honest as somebody happy to trade Tyler if it improves the team, I do think there's a concerted effort from a few posters here to just have us succeed without him for some reason. I don't fully understand it and I think its a lot of individual agendas coming together, (Wiggins fanboyism, others, or in some cases people just think Tyler's a dud which is fair). But I hope its not blinding ourselves to the reality of our roster.

[3ammy3uck3ts]

Personally I think marrying ourselves to Davion in the starting lineup because he's having 100% shooting nights is going to come back to bite us in the ass. I'm not necessarily opposed to small ball either, but I'm an advocate of finding ways to get your best 5 on the floor. This happened during the big 3's first season, I was begging to either play Wade/Miller at the 1/2 and limit Chalmers/Bibby/Arroyo minutes, or LeBron/Bosh at the 4/5 and limit Joel Anthony/Big Z/corpse of Dampier minutes. Spo didn't adjust for the entire season, and we had one of the most embarrassing Finals defeats of all time.

I'm not saying this roster should win a championship, the stakes aren't that high this time around. But its the same mistake, fall in love with hustle players (Joel Anthony, Arroyo, UD, the list goes on), force feed them minutes because they aren't making enough mistakes and you don't feel bold enough to just go with your talent, and then when the time comes and you actually need talent, you're running on empty.

Its not like anyone had us higher than a low seed in the playoffs this year though, so if we get shellacked in the second round everyone will applaud and call it a huge victory.

We should absolutely be championship favorites right now

[Tim_Hardawayy]

Personally I think marrying ourselves to Davion in the starting lineup because he's having 100% shooting nights is going to come back to bite us in the ass. I'm not necessarily opposed to small ball either, but I'm an advocate of finding ways to get your best 5 on the floor. This happened during the big 3's first season, I was begging to either play Wade/Miller at the 1/2 and limit Chalmers/Bibby/Arroyo minutes, or LeBron/Bosh at the 4/5 and limit Joel Anthony/Big Z/corpse of Dampier minutes. Spo didn't adjust for the entire season, and we had one of the most embarrassing Finals defeats of all time.

I'm not saying this roster should win a championship, the stakes aren't that high this time around. But its the same mistake, fall in love with hustle players (Joel Anthony, Arroyo, UD, the list goes on), force feed them minutes because they aren't making enough mistakes and you don't feel bold enough to just go with your talent, and then when the time comes and you actually need talent, you're running on empty.

Its not like anyone had us higher than a low seed in the playoffs this year though, so if we get shellacked in the second round everyone will applaud and call it a huge victory.

We should absolutely be championship favorites right now

I do love the optimism. Bam for SGA, who blinks first? SGA might have a finals mvp but can he guard 1 through 5? I think not.

[3ammy3uck3ts]

Personally I think marrying ourselves to Davion in the starting lineup because he's having 100% shooting nights is going to come back to bite us in the ass. I'm not necessarily opposed to small ball either, but I'm an advocate of finding ways to get your best 5 on the floor. This happened during the big 3's first season, I was begging to either play Wade/Miller at the 1/2 and limit Chalmers/Bibby/Arroyo minutes, or LeBron/Bosh at the 4/5 and limit Joel Anthony/Big Z/corpse of Dampier minutes. Spo didn't adjust for the entire season, and we had one of the most embarrassing Finals defeats of all time.

I'm not saying this roster should win a championship, the stakes aren't that high this time around. But its the same mistake, fall in love with hustle players (Joel Anthony, Arroyo, UD, the list goes on), force feed them minutes because they aren't making enough mistakes and you don't feel bold enough to just go with your talent, and then when the time comes and you actually need talent, you're running on empty.

Its not like anyone had us higher than a low seed in the playoffs this year though, so if we get shellacked in the second round everyone will applaud and call it a huge victory.

We should absolutely be championship favorites right now

I do love the optimism. Bam for SGA, who blinks first? SGA might have a finals mvp but can he guard 1 through 5? I think not.

SGA is nothing more than a torn Achilles/free throw merchant who has the luxury of playing on a roster allowed to play football all game

[Tim_Hardawayy]

Btw, for newer posters who either weren't around here at the time, or were not Heat fans, even though some see me now as more of a Riley/Spo defender, I was definitely more on the "play Beasley more" side in 09/10. I do think we did something similar at that time, UD was our Davion Mitchell of that era and it cost Michael a lot of development. Beas obviously had issues that go beyond that, but I'd argue if we weren't so utterly married to force feeding UD 35 minutes a night, Beas finds himself more with that roster.

So this is sort of an old wound for me. I do feel like we cost Beasley some of his development by marrying ourselves to UD, and I do think we're wasting some of what we can get from Tyler doing the same thing with Davion now. This organization does this, on the one hand its awesome when we find guys that are undrafted or unwanted and rehabilitate them into productive hustle players. But on the other, we fall in love with them to a fault.

Also goes to before this board existed, I used to feel we overplayed Keith Askins in the mid-late 90's. Guy would get 20+ minutes and the only thing he could do on offense is barely hit a 3, he was worse than Bruce Bowen on offense (another Heat creation though more people attribute him to the Spurs now). Anthony Carter, very similar (actually Carter reminds me of Davion). Just saying, I feel like history is repeating itself.

[Voltron914]

Personally I think marrying ourselves to Davion in the starting lineup because he's having 100% shooting nights is going to come back to bite us in the ass. I'm not necessarily opposed to small ball either, but I'm an advocate of finding ways to get your best 5 on the floor. This happened during the big 3's first season, I was begging to either play Wade/Miller at the 1/2 and limit Chalmers/Bibby/Arroyo minutes, or LeBron/Bosh at the 4/5 and limit Joel Anthony/Big Z/corpse of Dampier minutes. Spo didn't adjust for the entire season, and we had one of the most embarrassing Finals defeats of all time.

I'm not saying this roster should win a championship, the stakes aren't that high this time around. But its the same mistake, fall in love with hustle players (Joel Anthony, Arroyo, UD, the list goes on), force feed them minutes because they aren't making enough mistakes and you don't feel bold enough to just go with your talent, and then when the time comes and you actually need talent, you're running on empty.

Its not like anyone had us higher than a low seed in the playoffs this year though, so if we get shellacked in the second round everyone will applaud and call it a huge victory.

And if Davion keeps this up for the entire season and turns into an all-star making 10 million a season, obviously that's the best case scenario. Saves us a **** of money, doesn't rock the boat at all, keeps a good defensive unit on the floor at all times. I just don't think that's realistic, I don't think he's the Joel Anthony of point guards, but I do think there's going to be a wakeup call when he's asked to do more than dribble down the floor really fast. And the step back 3's in meaningless blowouts are fun, but is he going to be able to hit the open ones when the game is tight and the other team plays off him because they don't respect his J?

EDIT: And to be clear, yes there's a tradeoff if you put Tyler at the 1. But I don't think our defense is solely reliant on Davion there. I think Bam (and Ware when he gets the chance) are a lot more impactful, and the bigger issue is that we don't force guys into bad matchups, which are going to happen with Herro/Mitchell paired. If its just Tyler, both Tyler and Norm can guard guards, and you can even put Tyler onto a weak small forward matchup if that's the weakest player on the floor.

The defense can afford to hide one player, and it can deal with an occasional size mismatch, but you can't simultaneously hide a player AND be dealing with size mismatches, and that's what you get with Herro/Mitchell. Again, if Davion continues to be a neutral to positive on offense maybe that issue solves itself and you deal Tyler. But I've seen him too many times, even for stretches this year, look lost and unable to hit a wide open 3. There are games we lost before Tyler came back where we weren't running and Davion is just useless in the halfcourt. If we go anywhere in the playoffs we're probably facing the Knicks, and Davion does nothing vs Brunson, the Knicks force us into a halfcourt game, and Davion on offense was a drag. If you play him with Tyler, we're getting even more abused defensively. But if you swap him for Tyler, you can hide Tyler on Hart or something, put Norm or even Wiggins on Brunson, and on offense at least you have a guy who can score in the halfcourt. That's just one example. We're like planning our championship parade blowing out a Clippers team that looks like ass this year.

And to be perfectly honest as somebody happy to trade Tyler if it improves the team, I do think there's a concerted effort from a few posters here to just have us succeed without him for some reason. I don't fully understand it and I think its a lot of individual agendas coming together, (Wiggins fanboyism, others, or in some cases people just think Tyler's a dud which is fair). But I hope its not blinding ourselves to the reality of our roster.

i like what Davion brings and even after a perfect game last night there is no reason why he cant still produce that off the bench or have that small lineup in spurts if it brings something positive. we have the good problem of a deep team and Ware in the SL brings that paint presence we badly need. Norm and Tyler can roam and get off their mids and floaters with bam wiggs and ware respectable at the 3. The video break down from this game showed that we picked on Zubac with that drop coverage thats why we were raining 3s so even if we dont call plays its cool that there is a game plan. maybe thats why spo opted out of Ware tonight

[Tim_Hardawayy]

i like what Davion brings and even after a perfect game last night there is no reason why he cant still produce that off the bench or have that small lineup in spurts if it brings something positive.

Yeah that's all I'm really saying, sorry for the lengthy rants. Its just, I've seen this before with the Heat, it feels like Deja vu. And that's unfair to Davion but it is what it is.

[Enso]

All day!

I don’t want to but if push came to shove i guess I would. We’d need a big man badly after that though.

Giannis is an inch shorter than Ware but 15 pounds heavier, he plays bigger than anyone in the roster tbh. Bam/Giannis frontcourt is more than enough size and you give Ware 10 times out of 10 for Giannis no debate. If you can keep him though, great!

For sure I just got caught up fantasizing having Giannis run the point but you’re right he can still play the 4/5, rebound and bring up the ball to initiate offense.

[Tim_Hardawayy]

If we found a way to keep Ware, I'd run Giannis 3/Bam 4/Ware 5, and I think it'd work because both Bam and Ware have shown they can space the floor now, so you don't even have to worry about Giannis' lack of shooting. That would just be a freakish frontline.

Total pipe dream though.

[Enso]

If we found a way to keep Ware, I'd run Giannis 3/Bam 4/Ware 5, and I think it'd work because both Bam and Ware have shown they can space the floor now, so you don't even have to worry about Giannis' lack of shooting. That would just be a freakish frontline.

Total pipe dream though.

It is a a pipe dream the other guys are right, would take some Jedi mind trick wizardry to keep Ware out of a deal.

[Voltron914]

If we found a way to keep Ware, I'd run Giannis 3/Bam 4/Ware 5, and I think it'd work because both Bam and Ware have shown they can space the floor now, so you don't even have to worry about Giannis' lack of shooting. That would just be a freakish frontline.

Total pipe dream though.

It is a a pipe dream the other guys are right, would take some Jedi mind trick wizardry to keep Ware out of a deal.

i dont even want to get into those fantasy trade ideas again. so heart breaking i just want to enjoy what we have right now but if it happens....

[Tim_Hardawayy]

Well the other thing is, Giannis is on the other side of 30 and doesn’t have a spotless injury history either. So its not all sunshine and rainbows if you get him, you are expected to win chips immediately and if you don’t, you’re wasting both his time and your teams. So that’s a lot of pressure for a guy that to be honest I’ve never been enamored with as “the guy”. I know he had that one magical season with Milwaukee but I’ve always looked at him as more of an uber athletic Robin in the perfect situation.

It’s not the worst problem to have but it’s not a perfect slam dunk either. I’d never say no to us in the Giannis sweepstakes but I’d have liked him here a lot more a couple years ago paired with near prime Jimmy.

[DayofMourning]

Why is Giannis coming up in convo again? Did he say he wants out?

[Tim_Hardawayy]

Why is Giannis coming up in convo again? Did he say he wants out?

He’s acting like a teenage girl and deleting all his socials.

[Wiltside]

Giannis is going to cost the farm, as he likely should.

My guess would be something like:

Tyler Herro - All-Star, hometown kid, extend
Kel'el Ware - high upside piece
Jaime Jaquez Jr - upside/key piece
Nikola Jovic - potential / long term contracted
Simone Fontecchio - expiring
Firsts and Swaps

for

Giannis

We would need to go on a signing spree to fill out the roster with capable vets at minimum contracts if the plan is to contend (which it has to be if you're going all in).

A starting 5 of:

Mitchell
Powell
Wiggins
Adebayo
Giannis

Is pretty nice though, in theory. You'd still have Larsson and Smith as key backups. Need to fill out wings and bigs with depth signings.

[twix2500]

Fontecchio over Herro leads the Heat vs the Clippers

Watch on YouTube

[3ammy3uck3ts]

Giannis is going to cost the farm, as he likely should.

My guess would be something like:

Tyler Herro - All-Star, hometown kid, extend
Kel'el Ware - high upside piece
Jaime Jaquez Jr - upside/key piece
Nikola Jovic - potential / long term contracted
Simone Fontecchio - expiring
Firsts and Swaps

for

Giannis

We would need to go on a signing spree to fill out the roster with capable vets at minimum contracts if the plan is to contend (which it has to be if you're going all in).

A starting 5 of:

Mitchell
Powell
Wiggins
Adebayo
Giannis

Is pretty nice though, in theory. You'd still have Larsson and Smith as key backups. Need to fill out wings and bigs with depth signings.

Would have no issue with this at all. Guys would be flocking to sign here on the buyout market and this summer we’d have no problem filling out with veteran depth. I want to feel that win now pressure again