How tanking could impact Heat in playoff push. And a Riley statue, roster update
There’s a better chance of snow flurries in Homestead than the Heat intentionally losing games to improve their draft position.
But the insidious tentacles of tanking will impact the Heat – and the other Eastern Conference playoff teams – over the final six weeks of the season.
Yes, the Heat lost to a tanking Utah team that benched its top two players in the fourth quarter. But generally, Miami and the other teams in playoff position will be heavily favored in remaining games against egregious tankers. In particular, the Heat’s three remaining games against the woeful Wizards provide an advantage that most other teams don’t enjoy.
Of the teams seeded second through eighth in the East, the 76ers, Heat and Cleveland are in position to benefit the most from the league’s tanking infestation, provided they don’t mess it up as Miami did in a recent home game against Utah. Conversely, Boston seems to be hurt the most by this dynamic.
Six of the league’s 30 teams have become overt tankers as they jockey for position in a loaded draft: Washington, Sacramento, Utah, Brooklyn, Memphis and Indiana. Two others – Dallas and Chicago - have joined the tank brigade more discreetly, with the Mavericks shutting down Kyrie Irving for the season and the Bulls trading four players for four lesser players and nine second-round picks.
Miami is 11-5 against those eight teams, but that record was compiled mostly before several of those teams hit the gas pedal on their tanks. Since the egregious tankers began to more egregiously tank, Miami is 2-1 against that group (wins against Washington and Memphis and the bad loss to Utah).
(Quick aside: Some lottery teams aren’t tanking. New Orleans is not because the Pelicans don’t own their first round pick. The Bucks also are not aggressively tanking.)
The No. 8 Heat -- which is trying to jump Orlando for seventh and Philadelphia for sixth and Toronto for fifth -- plays more than a quarter of its remaining games against blatant tankers – two home games against Brooklyn next week; two home games and a road game against a dreadful Washington team that has shut down Anthony Davis and Trae Young; and a late-March game in Indiana, where the Heat was drubbed earlier this season, a game after which Davion Mitchell said the Heat overlooked the Pacers.
Among the three other teams jockeying for positions 5 through 8, Philadelphia has the most games against those eight tankers – eight of them, including two against Utah.
So if the Heat and 76ers dispatch all the tankers, Miami would still need to make up ground, something that would be very difficult if Philadelphia beats the Heat on Thursday night to move 2 1/2 games ahead of Miami. The Heat and 76ers also play March 30 in Miami.
Conversely, No. 5 Toronto -- which leads the Heat by three games –- has seven games against those eight tankers, which will make it more difficult for Miami to catch the Raptors, unless the Heat can sweep key games in Toronto April 7 and 9 in the final week of the season.
Another reason why it will be difficult for Miami to catch Toronto: Besides those seven games against blatant tankers, the Raptors also have two games against New Orleans, which is organically bad but not tanking because the Hawks own the Pelicans’ 2026 first-round pick.
And No. 7 Orlando, which enters Thursday leading Miami by one game, has six games against those eight tankers, plus a game against New Orleans.
Tanking also will impact the top half of the East’s bracket. No. 2 Boston, No. 3 New York and No. 4 Cleveland are separated by only two games. But the Celtics are at a slight deficit because they have only four games against the tankers (Brooklyn, Dallas, Washington, Memphis), while the Knicks have seven and the Cavaliers eight (plus a game at New Orleans).
Riley honor
The Heat is expected to build a statue for team president Pat Riley someday, and that would put him in very unique company in the wake of the Lakers unveiling a statue for the coach who guided them to four championships.
Among U.S. pro coaches and players in the NFL, NBA, NHL and Major League Baseball, only three people are known to have statues at more than one stadium: hockey great Wayne Gretzky (who has statues outside the Edmonton Oilers’ and Los Angeles Kings’ arenas), former MLB home run king Hank Aaron (who has statues at ballparks in Milwaukee and Atlanta) and former big-league star player and manager Frank Robinson, who has statues outside ballparks in Cincinnati, Baltimore and Cleveland.
Roster move
The Heat will have one more roster spot available whenever it releases Terry Rozier, a move that’s likely by the end of the season.
Though players who are bought out by Sunday can join another team at any time and maintain playoff eligibility, no strong buyout candidate has emerged for the Heat. Miami does not wish to sign any buyout players that it views as comparable to what the team already has, particularly because it wants to invest heavy minutes in its young players.
More likely, the Heat could use Rozier’s spot to sign a developmental player to a multi-year contract (with minimal financial guarantees) late in the season.
One reason to wait to make that move: It gives Miami flexibility to add a veteran (replacing Rozier) if it loses two or three players at the same position.
TV NOTE
Saturday’s Rockets-at-Heat game will be the second of three Heat games scheduled to be streamed this season by Amazon Prime, one of the league’s new rights-holders.
Coincidentally, the first two Amazon Heat games (Dec. 8 against Orlando and Saturday’s game) are being called by the Charlotte Hornets’ TV team (Eric Collins, Dell Curry), who are also essentially serving as Amazon’s No. 4 team. Lead Amazon play-by-players Ian Eagle and Kevin Harlan are busy with college basketball assignments for CBS this weekend.
Saturday’s game will not be carried on FanDuel Sports Sun.
This story was originally published February 26, 2026 at 9:05 AM.
