Heat most to blame for 2023-24 NBA season failure

The regular season is a grind that teams that have playoff experience tend to take for granted. This is the double-edged sword that comes with being a team that flips the switch come playoff time. They believe they can turn up the intensity with the snap of a finger, but it makes their path to a deep postseason run more difficult than it has to be.

Now, this is not to say that the Heat consciously punted on the regular season. But they have to take these seemingly inconsequential games much more seriously than they do, as they tend to be content with letting chips fall where they may in the regular season then figuring out the rest later instead of controlling their destiny from a much more favorable position.

Jimmy Butler, in particular, has to be much better. Unlike last year, Butler didn’t exactly turn on the jets to end the year. He averaged 19 a night in the final month of the regular season (eight games), a major letdown compared to the 25.1 points, 4.1 boards, and 7.1 assists a night he put up in the final eight games of last year, which set up the stage for his epic run in the playoffs in 2023.

Perhaps Butler is merely slowing down, as his numbers across the board went down and his shooting efficiency dipped considerably. He’s already 34 years old, and Father Time catches up to everyone not named LeBron James.

However, Butler’s playoff reputation means he has to be held to the same standard as his peers. Simply put, as the Heat’s best player, he did not do enough to weather the storm as his team dealt with a plethora of injury problems.

Of course, no one can blame Butler for sustaining an unfortunate knee injury in the play-in tournament game against the Philadelphia 76ers. But the Heat’s middling regular season meant that they had to play an extra two games via the play-in, and after overcoming that obstacle, they had to face the best team in the NBA this past season (record-wise), the Boston Celtics, in the first round.

Playing the what-if game is dangerous. But it’ll be enticing for Heat fans to ponder whether or not Jimmy Butler would have sustained that injury had Miami played well enough to avoid the play-in. And who knows, perhaps the Heat take care of the Milwaukee Bucks if they ended up as the six-seed… or maybe even find themselves in a favorable matchup against either the Cleveland Cavaliers or Orlando Magic if they finished even higher?

Adding Terry Rozier was helpful… but it wasn’t enough

For how big of a game the Heat talked up during the offseason, all they managed to acquire to bolster the roster was Terry Rozier in a widely-acclaimed trade with the Charlotte Hornets. Make no mistake about it, Rozier was very helpful (before he went down with injury) even though it took him a bit of time to get going.

Rozier gave the Heat a dangerous pull-up threat, a part of the offense they were sorely missing amid Tyler Herro’s lengthy absence. He may have shot the ball worse than he did in a bigger role with the Hornets, but his floor spacing allowed the other Heat players to settle into roles they were more comfortable in.

But Damian Lillard, Terry Rozier is not. The Heat are always in the running whenever a star player becomes available on the trade market, and all they could manage was a trade for Rozier. Miami has plenty of players who are capable of contributing to winning basketball, but they need a captain to help helm the ship alongside Jimmy Butler and Bam Adebayo. Meanwhile, Rozier is more of a secondary or tertiary scorer who breaks down defenses via the space a much better player than him creates more than a primary option in Lillard’s mold.

The question now is, can Pat Riley conjure up his magic yet again and build a team that can contend next season?

What tricks does Pat Riley have up his sleeve?

It was, in the end, a disappointing season for Pat Riley; the Terry Rozier trade was his major move this season, and suffice to say, it wasn’t enough for the Heat to avoid an early playoff exit, especially amid the team’s injury woes. Drafting Jaime Jaquez Jr. was a stroke of genius, but the roster Riley had built mostly stagnated. Trading for Damian Lillard would have been game-changing, although Lillard being out right now for the Milwaukee Bucks due to injury isn’t exactly ideal.

Meanwhile, the Heat’s other players didn’t exactly play their best basketball. Duncan Robinson had a few scorching months, but he went ice cold not too long afterwards. Josh Richardson didn’t exactly move the needle before he underwent season-ending surgery. Caleb Martin was okay, but he didn’t take off the way many thought he would following an impressive 2023 playoff run, while Delon Wright, Kevin Love, Thomas Bryant, and Patty Mills all ranged from poor to meh.

At full strength, the Heat certainly could have made the Celtics sweat. But those role players were thrust into a bigger role than they were capable of taking on. The injury problems the Heat endured, especially to Tyler Herro, who missed 40 games this past season, never really gave the team much of a chance to get rolling.

Pat Riley, however, is a master roster-builder. He definitely has something in store for the Heat moving forward as they try to up both the team’s ceiling and floor. Their roster is crying out for another do-it-all wing to help out Jimmy Butler, as they have filled their guard void with the addition of Terry Rozier, and they need a bigger, more versatile member of the frontcourt to help out Bam Adebayo.

The Heat can trade its 2024 first-round pick on draft night, and they can also dangle their 2030 first-rounder with the hope of snagging an upgrade. Can the Heat, against all odds, trade for Brandon Ingram from the New Orleans Pelicans? The Pelicans seem to be at the end of their rope with their current roster, so can the Heat swoop in and pull off a blockbuster?

Can the Heat, perhaps, take a swing on Robert Williams III to give Bam Adebayo one of the best backups in the association? Maybe the Heat could even trade for Bruce Brown to give them more two-way play on the wing. Or who knows, maybe the Heat address their lack of size at the four by adding old friend Kelly Olynyk or Kyle Kuzma.

At the end of the day, the Heat cannot stand pat. And Pat Riley knows this. It’ll be interesting to see how the Heat navigate the long offseason that is ahead of them.