Cote: Tortoise to hare, reinvention of Miami Heat has been NBA marvel | Opinion
Fun. Unpredictable. Fast. Unexpected. Exciting. Disappointing. Youthful. Arduous. Tumultuous. Hopeful.
All of these words can be made to describe this Miami Heat team and season approaching its one-quarter mark.
Surprise is one of the great joys of sports, and the Heat is delivering. This season has come out of nowhere, and I mean that too close to literally because this is nowhere in the NBA, from whence this season came:
A slide into mediocrity with three straight years worse than the one before. Play-in purgatory. Losing your star player as Jimmy Butler pouts his way to a trade to Golden State. Being swept out of last season’s play-in round by Cleveland in four losses by an embarrassing, humiliating 122 combined points.
Then came the tumult that welcomed this season. All-Star Tyler Herro yet to play after offseason ankle surgery. An 0-6 preseason. Terry Rozier suspended indefinitely in a league gambling probe. Captain Bam Adebayo missing the past six games with a toe injury. And for bizarre, tragic punctuation: Coach Erik Spoelstra returns home from a road trip in time to see his residence gutted in a massive house fire.
From these ashes rises a Heat team that, even depleted, is 9-6 after Wednesday night’s 110-96 home win over a Golden State Warriors team missing both Steph Curry and Heat expatriate Jimmy Butler. (Jimmy played the night before in a loss in Orlando as coach Steve Kerr continued grousing about his team’s demanding schedule, and apparently was not up to the rigors of going back-to-back.)
“It was a very painful, embarrassing first-round loss,” said Spoelstra of the impetus for wholesale change. “That sparked a lot of thought that we needed to do some things better, and differently.”
Now Adebayo says he’s “optimistic” he’ll return to the court tonight. And Herro has resumed practice for the first time all season and seems only a week or two from making his season debut. Cue the cavalry reference.
“It felt great to be in the drills. My foot is getting better,” Herro said. “I’ve been rehabbing around the clock every day since my surgery, trying to get back as soon as I can. I’m looking at about a week or two, hopefully, barring no setbacks.”
The sweet thing is, Herro and Adebayo are not galloping in to rescue a drowning team as much as they will be integrated into something that is percolating pretty well in a season that has underlined Spoelstra’s status as the NBA’s best coach after he had a rather rocky 2024-25 go.
Herro and Adebayo will give Spo the enviable challenge of having an eight- or even 10-man rotation of guys all meriting 20-minutes plus on the court. (The most ludicrous narrative of this early season has been the idea this challenge might somehow be too much for Spo. Please! Herro’s late-game shotmaking and Bam’s rebounding and defense will always earn a place.)
Meantime what’s going right without them has been rather astounding:
▪ Kel’el Ware: The 7-footer is still an NBA baby at 21, but is emerging as one of the Heat’s brightest young stars since ... Dwyane Wade? I know it’s illegal in the NBA for anybody to compare anyone to the ordained and anointed Victor Wembanyama, but Ware could be Miami’s facsimile. He has a double-double in four straight games. His emergence, accelerated in Bam’s absence, has shown his ceiling is that high. And with Jaime Jacquez Jr. and Nikola Jovic, Ware gives Miami a troika of youth infusion such as veteran-leaning Miami has seldom had.
▪ Pace of play: No team in the NBA looks more different at a glance than a year earlier. Spoelstra has turned the Heat from a halfcourt offense to one with the fastest pace of play in the league, one whose 124.6 scoring average leads the Eastern Conference and is 0.2 points off the league lead. Miami’s 110.2 possessions per game are 10.1 more than last season, a huge leap. For perspective, the next biggest jump in possessions is plus-5.8 by Dallas. The tortoise has become the hare, an astounding turnaround by a franchise whose “Heat Culture” is rooted first in the fundamental of defense, not fast breaks. This is not your father’s Heat, the one that would beat the Knicks in an 83-78 mud bath.
▪ Norman Powell: He’s proving what a steal his offseason acquisition was for roster maestro Pat Riley in that three-team trade. Powell is playing all-star quality with a 25.5-point scoring average and 46% shooting on 3’s. He’s a late-blooming star at 32, a perfect fit — and deserving so far of his first career all-star nod. Jimmy who?
In an “others” category, I would mention defensive stalwart Davion Mitchell dishing 7.4 assists per game, top-10 level.
Look, I’m not overselling Miami here in a deep East. Entering Wednesday the Heat sits with the seventh-best record in the conference. This might end up being the most exciting team in the play-in round. But it also could end up being a top-four team with the home court in the first round — the team you don’t want to face early.
I trust Heat fans appreciate what they have relative to what it has been lately.
From the mess of Butler’s ragged ending and that epic playoff humiliation by Cleveland. To the Heat’s new fast pace, Powell’s rise, Ware’s emergence, and now Adebayo returning and Herro close.
It was during the Big 3 era before it dissolved in 2014 when Miami boasted a basketball product this exciting.
This story was originally published November 19, 2025 at 10:59 AM.
