Heat’s Tyler Herro on playoff lessons learned, desire to be starter and potential extension
Tyler Herro was deemed the NBA’s best bench player this regular season in the form of the Sixth Man of the Year award, but this postseason did not go as smoothly for the Miami Heat guard.
“The playoffs for me were kind of a weird ride,” the 22-year-old Herro admitted Tuesday afternoon as the Heat held exit interviews at FTX Arena after it fell one game short of reaching the NBA Finals. “Ups and downs throughout the whole thing. But I think it was a learning curve for me. I think people forget that I just turned 22 and it’s still only my third playoffs.
“As I made a jump this year, I continue to get better. I think throughout my career, especially early on throughout my career, there’s going to be small setbacks where I learn. It motivates me, gets me better and teaches me what I need to work on to get better. The next time I’m in that situation, I’ll be more prepared and better.”
Herro closed the regular season as the Heat’s second-leading scorer with a career-high 20.7 points per game behind only Jimmy Butler. Herro did it while shooting a career-best 44.7 percent from the field and 39.9 percent from three-point range, while averaging a career-high four assists.
But Herro’s production dipped this postseason, as each of the Heat’s three playoff opponents made it a priority to slow him down with a mixture of traps and ball pressure. He averaged just 12.6 points while shooting 40.9 percent from the field and 22.9 percent from three-point range and 2.8 assists in this year’s playoffs.
“I feel like I saw a different coverage each series. I feel like teams, they prioritized me,” Herro said. “But a little bit more this playoffs. But I think throughout the season, I was the second-leading scorer and they made me a focus. Like I said, it’s a learning point, a learning curve for me to be able to go through different coverages, different defenders guarding me and how they’re guarding me. It’s all a process.”
Heat coach Erik Spoelstra believes Herro’s experience this postseason “was really important to go through.”
“What it proved to me in my eyes is that teams, they see how important he is and they’re not going to just let him play,” Spoelstra said. “We saw basically three different schemes in three different series against him and I think he just puts that, catalogs that into his brain and goes to work at it. I think that will be really important moving forward. His skill level is so high and his work ethic and how much he puts into it, he’s only going to continue to get exponentially better during the seasons and that will translate to the playoffs.”
A groin injury also helped slow Herro this postseason. Herro admitted that his strained left groin “was lingering a little bit throughout the playoffs” and “it was just a sore groin at one point.”
Herro tweaked the groin in Game 3 of the Eastern Conference finals in Boston and “that’s when I really couldn’t play through it.” He sat out Games 4, 5 and 6 of the East finals because of the injury and was available for Sunday’s Game 7 season-ending loss but was very clearly limited as he finished scoreless in just seven minutes off the bench.
“Going into Game 7, I was kind of on the fence whether I should play or not,” Herro said. “I feel like I was healthy enough to play. Me and Spo had a good conversation and he just felt like it was all hands on deck. Whether I was going to play or not just depended on how the game was going. But we liked the way that my groin was progressing and we thought we would get Game 7 and I would be close to 100 percent for Game 1 of the Finals. It’s just unfortunate the way the season ended, but I thought I would be ready to go for Game 1.”
Instead of preparing for the start of the NBA Finals, Herro now enters an offseason that could help decide his future with the organization.
Herro, who will earn $5.7 million this upcoming season in the final year of his rookie deal, is eligible to sign a contact extension worth as much as $181 million over five seasons, with a first-year salary (2023-24) of $31.2 million. He can sign for five years — instead of four — only if he gets a max contract.
Herro will naturally seek a max extension from the Heat, but recent history with players of or close to his caliber entering their extension window indicates he may not get it. Jaylen Brown signed a four-year, $107 million extension with the Boston Celtics in the 2019 offseason and Mikal Bridges signed a four-year, $90 million extension with the Phoenix Suns last offseason.
The Heat and Herro have a mid-October deadline (the final day before the start of the regular season) to reach an agreement on an extension. If an extension isn’t agreed to by then, Herro will become a restricted free agent in the 2023 offseason.
“I’m not sure yet, honestly, what’s going to happen,” Herro said when asked about his potential extension with the Heat. “We’ll see what happens in the summer. My agent will talk to who he needs to talk to and we’ll see what happens.”
One thing is for sure, Herro wants to be a full-time starter next season. He has started in just 33 of the 175 regular-season games he has appeared in during his first three NBA seasons.
“I would like to start,” Herro said. “I think it’s my fourth year, so hopefully I’ve earned it and we’ll see what happens.”
Just days into the Heat’s offseason, the trade speculation involving Herro’s name has already begun. Herro’s name has been mentioned in trade rumors for most his Heat career.
That outside noise combined with the uncertainty regarding a potential extension with the Heat will make for an interesting summer for Herro. All the while, he’ll continue to work on his game and body after adding 10 pounds of muscle last offseason.
“He can help us win basketball games in more ways than just scoring the basketball,” Heat veteran and captain Udonis Haslem said of Herro. “He’s improved with his passing, he’s getting better with his defense and understanding of being in the right place at the right time. But these are all things that he’s just got to continue to work on.”
This story was originally published May 31, 2022 at 4:04 PM.
