Exploring Heat ‘at the rim’ questions. And Heat ‘trash’ comment, personnel news
A six-pack of Heat notes on a Tuesday:
▪ Much brain power has been spent on worrying about the Heat’s three-point shooting; the roster has four of the top 38 highest percentage three-point shooters from last season, but also might be one great shooter short of being good enough for a potentially long playoff run.
But here’s something nobody talks about: the opposite of distance shooting. We’re talking about the Heat’s accuracy at the rim, an area that must improve.
The Heat wasn’t very good in the basket area last season. Giannis Antetokounmpo -- as destructive at the rim as any player in the game - will help a lot. But it’s still a moderate area of concern.
The good news: Antetokounmpo shot 80% from 0 for 3 feet last season, far better than the league average of 70 percent. He’s a runaway freight train when he gets to the basket in transition and can finish at a high percentage at the rim in halfcourt sets.
Pelle Larsson is also a polished finisher; he shot 72.9% from that distance.
But the Heat lost its second, third and fourth best finishers (percentage wise) at the rim in the trade – Jaime Jaquez Jr. at 71.8, Kel’el Ware at 71.3 and Tyler Herro at 70.2 – and every remaining heavy-usage veteran player was below average at the rim last season:
Bam Adebayo at 68.5%, Andrew Wiggins at 67.9, Simone Fontecchio at 63.4, Nikola Jovic and Davion Mitchell at 63.3 and Dru Smith at 59.5.
Among the other veteran newcomers, Bobby Portis was about average at 69.8% and Tim Hardaway Jr. below average at 67.2%.
▪ Chris Haynes, the veteran NBA insider, said LeBron James won’t meet with teams he’s considering and instead will rely on information gathered by agent Rich Paul. The Heat hasn’t been told if it’s getting James or not.
ESPN’s Brian Windhorst said Tuesday that nobody knows what James will do.
“You talk to these teams who are interested in signing LeBron and there’s a dearth of information,” Windhorst said. “It’s all one-way information. This is how his previous free agencies have operated. Nobody has known.
“Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh got about 12 hour heads up when he came to Miami.
“Dwyane Wade got roughly that, maybe a little less, when LeBron left to go to Cleveland. He keeps a very tight circle, and when it comes to announcing his free agency, he does a very good job of keeping a secret.
“There’s a lot of people out there who are basing things on vibe,... and that may end up being correct. There is a circle kept very tight. This has a lot of the NBA on edge right now.”
▪ ESPN announcer and former guard Danny Green, on the No Fouls podcast, predicted the Heat will be “trash” this season:
“Both these teams [Heat and Bucks] are going to be in the play-in. The [Heat] are one calf strain away from being in the lottery. Go over their roster. I don’t think they’re going to be good enough.
“There’s not much talent outside of Bam and Giannis. Outside of that where’s the rest of the talent? Just because Giannis is in Miami,.. they’re not going to be good. They don’t have enough other people around him.”
▪ Beyond Ryan Conwell’s knack for scoring (21.6 ppg in summer league), the Heat also has been impressed with his defensive aptitude.
“He competes,” Heat summer league coach Wayne Ellington said. “He can slide his feet. He stays in front of people. He can rebound as well defensively.”
Asked if he ever thinks about what his role could be on the team this upcoming season, Conwell said “maybe sometimes at night, I’ll think about it here and there. It’s hard to [not think about] the superstars we have on our team.”
▪ Summer league quick stuff:
Former Louisville forward Je’Vonne Hadley, the only player besides Conwell to start all three preseason games, has thoroughly impressed the coaching staff. “He plays very hard, plays the right way,” Ellington said. “He’s a big time connector out there, does all the little things.”
Though he hasn’t played much, Ellington also praised ex-South Carolina guard Meechie Johnson, who’s a friend of LeBron James….
Ellington was non-committal about whether Myron Gardner (who’s on a standard contract) will miss the Las Vegas portion of summer league because of an ankle sprain sustained in Miami’s opening game in San Francisco:
“I’m not exactly sure what it’s going to look like going forward,” Ellington said. “I know he’s been getting treatment.”
▪ Besides waiting for LeBron James, the Heat continues to wait patiently to see if another shooter or scorer shakes free. They had initial conversations with Bradley Beal but haven’t been aggressive in their pursuit, per a source. They hadn’t contacted Demar DeRozan as of Monday, though that could change.
DeRozan, who isn’t a three-point shooter, would seem to make even more sense if Miami doesn’t land James.
Here’s our Tuesday piece on Tyler Herro strange’s final week with the Heat.
This story was originally published July 7, 2026 at 4:47 PM.
