The fatal flaw that doomed Heat and the decision to reject 3 potential solutions
As the Heat limps toward a fourth consecutive play-in appearance, with a hodgepodge roster that’s finding new ways to embarrass itself, the organization’s fatal flaw seemingly has crystallized:
Too much patience. Too much faith. Too much willingness to see the best in players and overlook the worst.
Those are all admirable qualities if you are trying to salvage or sustain a personal relationship.
But with these recent iterations of the Heat, that overriding faith has proved damaging, creating a deficient team (Miami’s 23-32 against top-10 seeds) and diminished trade assets and leaving the franchise stuck in a play-in abyss with no clear escape route.
In 40 years covering South Florida sports, very few things have left me dumbfounded. The Dolphins’ 2019 decision to sign Ryan Fitzpatrick — instead of a lesser quarterback — and then trade for Josh Rosen and not play him, during a season when snagging the first pick was an organizational priority, would top my list of head-scratching decisions.
But the Heat’s choice to keep together the core that finished last season in humiliating fashion is close. How exactly could the Heat justify standing by a group that lost 10 in a row, was repeatedly blown out at home and was swept out of the playoffs by the largest margin in NBA history (122 points)?
How could the owners or team president Pat Riley assess that team and say, “You know what? This is a good team. We need to see them another year.”
Once they made that decision, thinking that keeping Andrew Wiggins was a good idea and adding Norm Powell and Kasparas Jakucionis was enough to make them a contender, their fate seemingly was sealed. The aftermath of that decision — a 41-39 record and 10 losses in the past 13 games — shouldn’t be much of a surprise.
If blind faith has been the Heat’s No. 1 flaw, then ruling out too many options is close behind. Unless teams get a unicorn drafting in the mid-teens (Kawhi Leonard and Giannis Antetokounmpo are rare examples), franchise caught in the abyss essentially have three ways to escape.
Miami has bypassed (or been unable to achieve) all three:
▪ Taking a step back in the hopes of eventually taking a step forward.
Miami summarily rejects anything resembling tanking because of a long-standing organizational philosophy that isn’t going to be revisited.
Riley has said he doesn’t want to endure years of losing and ownership agrees. And the Heat has done comprehensive research and concluded that tanking seldom results in championships. So that’s out.
▪ Trading players (including selling high on players) for future assets.
Miami’s best trade asset (Bam Adebayo) remains untouchable, so that’s out. Tyler Herro said 15 months ago that the Heat told him he was available for only top-75 all-time players; now he likely wouldn’t command a first-rounder for a top-1000 all-time player, in part because of the recent devaluing of one-dimensional scorers on the trade market.
But if not selling high on Herro was a mistake, the curious commitment to Andrew Wiggins stands just as puzzling.
While the Heat viewed Wiggins as a difference-maker and decided last July to keep him, he has remained what he has always been — a player who floats, unnoticed, through some games, but delivers enough defense, connectivity and occasional scoring outbursts to make himself an asset when he’s on his game. You just never know when those nights will happen.
He couldn’t replicate his postseason success in Golden State in last year’s debacle against Cleveland, when he shot 3 for 10 in Games 2 and 3.
The Heat will get something modest in return if he opts into his $30 million player option to facilitate a sign-and-trade. But Miami will have much less flexibility if he opts into the $30 million with the intent of staying here.
In retrospect, Miami should have taken what it could from the Lakers or other suitors last summer, or second-round picks at the trade deadline. Miami is an inadequate team with him and likely wouldn’t be much worse without him.
Bottom line: The window to trade players for significant assets, as the Knicks and Thunder and others have done, appears to have passed, unless they surprisingly decide to listen on Adebayo.
▪ Offering enough assets to acquire talented All Star players who are disgruntled or whose trade value has been diminished.
During the past three years, trades for Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving, Brandon Ingram and Derrick White (who wasn’t a diminished asset) required only one first-round pick (as well as other assets).
Trae Young didn’t net any first-round picks. Ja Morant potentially could have been extracted from Memphis for no first-round picks.
Miami has been exceedingly selective in pursuing top players, aside from offering anything but Adebayo for Antetokounmpo. (Utah and Portland were willing to consider only Adebayo in deals for Donovan Mitchell and Damian Lillard before they were dealt to Cleveland and Milwaukee.)
The Heat opted not to top Dallas’ decent (but hardly extraordinary) offer for Irving; didn’t pursue Young or Morant; didn’t show strong interest in Ingram and made Kel’el Ware off limits for Durant (and didn’t want to give up Nikola Jovic, though it likely wouldn’t have made a difference).
Riley has said that it’s worth offering the moon only for two or three players on Earth. But how about taking more chances on more players whose talent exceeds their trade value? It’s almost as if the Terry Rozier era, which mercifully ended Friday, has made the organization gun shy.
In our view, the only way to escape this play-in quicksand is to pick one of the three aforementioned paths. Miami said no to the first two and was too selective on the third.
Riley sounded bullish on the Heat’s assets last May, asserting that “we’re probably in as good a situation from a draft-pick, young-player, favorable-contract situation as we have been in a long time.” Then Miami gave Jovic a four-year, $62 million deal that seemed defensible at the time but now stands as a regrettable mistake, in retrospect.
And six months later, what was obvious to us two years ago — and to much of the fan base last year — can no longer be denied: The Heat put its faith in a roster that didn’t deserve it.
Playoff update
The Heat will be locked into the 10th seed either by losing one of its last two games (at Washington Friday or home to Atlanta on Sunday) or if Charlotte wins twice (home to Detroit Friday, at the Knicks Sunday) or if Charlotte and Philadelphia each win once. The 76ers close with a game at Indiana on Friday and a home game against Milwaukee on Sunday.
If Miami is the 10th seed, it would play an elimination play-in game, likely at Charlotte (but possibly at Philadelphia or at Orlando) on Tuesday or Wednesday, with the winner of that game advancing to a road play-in elimination game on Friday.
Meanwhile, two Heat wins, two 76ers losses and two Hornets losses would lift Miami to the eighth seed, provided Orlando doesn’t finish with the same record as those three teams. A team that finishes eighth must win only one play-in game (on the road against the No. 7 team) to advance to the playoffs.
This story was originally published April 10, 2026 at 11:39 AM.
