Despite familiar roster, Heat hopes things look different this season: ‘We got to evolve’
Erik Spoelstra is at the start of his 15th season as the Miami Heat’s head coach. Just don’t tell him that.
“Pat [Riley] said it when he first hired me, he said you’re going to blink and 10 years are going to go by,” Spoelstra said. “Well, I blinked and now I’m starting Year 15. Please tell me that’s not true. I want you to tell me that I’m on Year 5.”
Unfortunately for Spoelstra, Year 5 as the Heat’s head coach came back in the 2012-13 season. But Spoelstra, who will turn 52 on Nov. 1, doesn’t plan on stopping any time soon.
“I love this profession. I love this organization. I love what I get an opportunity to do and work with amazing people,” he said. “I want to do this for a long time. I feel a great responsibility to be a caretaker for this culture and to carry on what’s been built for years, almost 30 years, with the leadership of the Arisons and Pat [Riley].
“Man, I love that responsibility and the challenges are always different each year. That’s the great thing about this business. It’s not like whatever you did the year before will definitely transfer to next year. It’s different and those differences keep it fresh.”
With the Heat opening its 35th season on Wednesday against the Chicago Bulls at FTX Arena (7:30 p.m., Bally Sports Sun), the challenge this time is clear.
How can the Heat take another step forward this season despite not making an outside addition to its 15-man roster via free agency or trade this past summer? In fact, Miami returns 13 players from last season’s season-ending roster that made it to the Eastern Conference finals and finished one win short of reaching the NBA Finals.
“I want to be open to how it can be different and how it can be better,” Spoelstra said. “I don’t want to just assume that everything and how everybody was last year will be exactly how it is this year. I think that takes intention not only from myself and the coaching staff, but all the players. It’s our job collectively to figure out how this can all work better. We came up short last year and we want to take that next biggest step and that will require improvement from within and also just some differences that are unique from last year.”
The only new faces on this season’s roster, which includes 16 players, are first-round pick Nikola Jovic and two-way contract players Jamal Cain and Dru Smith. Miami lost P.J. Tucker and Markieff Morris in the offseason, with both signing elsewhere in free agency.
Even with so many returning players, Spoelstra’s creativity was on display this preseason as he looks to find new solutions. That includes what’s expected to be a new-look starting lineup, a revamped bench rotation and bigger roles for some of the team’s best young players.
“We understand that if we want to win, we can’t do the same thing or be the same players or be the same team,” Heat veteran forward and team captain Udonis Haslem said. “We got to evolve, we got to change things up, we got to learn from the things we did wrong last year and get better at the things that we did good last year.”
What will be different about the Heat to start the season? Among the expected changes are:
▪ Guard Tyler Herro, who was named the NBA’s Sixth Man of the Year last season, is expected to be promoted to a starting role in the spot that wing Max Strus occupied in the starting lineup during last season’s playoff run. That means that Strus will likely return to a reserve role.
▪ Caleb Martin is expected to be the Heat’s starting power forward, which is a role that belonged to Tucker last season before he signed with the Philadelphia 76ers this past summer.
▪ This would give the Heat a starting lineup of Kyle Lowry, Herro, Jimmy Butler, Martin and Bam Adebayo. This group played just 17 minutes together last season.
▪ Adebayo has been pushed to take on a bigger scoring role this season by teammates and coaches. He did just that in the preseason, when he averaged 31 points on 19.4 field-goal attempts and 12.1 free-throw attempts per 36 minutes.
▪ Guard Victor Oladipo should play a more prominent role as a Heat reserve if he can remain healthy, with the team in search of a player who can replace the spark Herro provided off the bench last season. Oladipo appeared in just eight regular-season games last season after spending most of the year recovering from his second knee surgery in less than three years.
“We already look different,” Spoelstra said. “And that’s the thing when we started talking about this in June and July and August, and as a staff as we were preparing. I think it would have been easy for all of us just to say, ‘Let’s run it back and let’s do the exact same things.’ We went through the laborious process of starting with a blank sheet of paper. And let’s act like we don’t know any of that and let’s try to figure out a plan, and let’s be open to see where this can go.
“That won’t stop. That will be all season. But just even visually right now, of how it feels, it already looks different than last year. It remains to be seen whether it’s better or not. But early signs are there’s some good things happening.”
More will be revealed in the coming days with the help of the Heat’s challenging early schedule. Miami opens the season with a four-game homestand — all against East teams that made the playoffs last season: Wednesday against the Bulls, Friday against the Boston Celtics, Saturday against the Toronto Raptors and Monday against the Raptors.
Despite closing last regular season as the East’s top playoff seed and then advancing to the conference finals, the Heat enters this season with the fifth-best betting odds to win the East behind the Celtics, Milwaukee Bucks, Brooklyn Nets and 76ers, according to BetOnline.
“We didn’t get there and everybody still remembers how it feels,” Haslem said when asked how bringing back much of last season’s roster that fell just short of reaching the NBA Finals will benefit the Heat. “We don’t have a bunch of guys that are coming into a new situation trying to live off the memories of last year. Everybody who is literally in this locker room pretty much was there. They know what that felt like, they know how close we were. They know nobody gave us much of a chance. And if they’re paying attention, they know nobody is giving us much of a chance this year. There’s more than enough motivation out there. They shouldn’t have to find it or look for it.”
INJURY REPORT
The Heat ruled out Oladipo (left knee tendinosis) and center Omer Yurtseven (left ankle impingement) for the season opener. They are the only Heat players on the injury report.
Oladipo, who is considered day-to-day, has been through two surgeries on his right knee in the past three-plus years. This time, it’s his left knee that’s bothering him.
“This is part of the process when a player like Vic ramps it up and then you add the workload and everything,” Spoelstra said following Tuesday’s practice. “I think this is normal. We want to proceed with care, and that’s all this is right now. He’s day-to-day. We want to make sure we take care of this so it doesn’t linger.”
The Bulls listed star wing Zach LaVine (left knee injury management) as questionable for Wednesday’s game in Miami. Guard Alex Caruso (left calf contusion) is probable and guard Lonzo Ball (left knee surgery) will not play.
This story was originally published October 18, 2022 at 2:41 PM.
