Exploring the criticism of the Heat that’s justified and the criticism that’s not

A Heat front office once considered the model for pro sports now faces a torrent of unrelenting criticism on social media, fans growing progressively more exasperated that management seemingly cannot land the tantalizing talent sorely needed to transform a pretty good team to a championship-caliber one.

Every morsel of news about Miami’s rivals — the Knicks adding Mikal Bridges here, the 76ers adding Paul George over there — only ratchets up the anger among a large chunk of Heat fans.

It’s easy to brush aside the sustained winning, three championships and seven Finals appearances during 30 seasons under Pat Riley’s stewardship. Social media has made this a what-have-you-done-for-me-lately world, and the fan base understandably is fixated on the team’s inability to construct a roster with the talent to match the league’s elite.

Take a step back, and the view here is some of the criticism is warranted and some isn’t.

Here’s what’s not warranted, at least from our perspective:

▪ Accusing the Heat of being cheap.

The Heat had the seventh-highest payroll in the NBA last season; Miami paid $15.7 million in luxury taxes, one of seven teams with a payroll that triggered a tax. Paying a tax prohibited Miami from dipping into the pot shared by non-taxpaying teams last season, which was $11.9 million per team for this past league year. Miami received none of that money.

The Heat’s current 2024-25 payroll would be the NBA’s sixth highest, per hoopshype.com. With its current commitments, Miami would pay an $18 million tax next summer, per Public Tableau Salary Tax Calculator.

If the Heat adds another $7 million in salary (quite possible) before the end of next season, its tax would be $38.9 million.

Miami has paid $68 million in taxes since the luxury tax was instituted. That’s 13th most in NBA history, per spotrac — more than Denver’s $58 million and the 76ers’ $47 million.

The issue is not whether the money is being spent. The question is whether it’s being spent wisely.

▪ Calling this era of Heat basketball a failure. It’s not. It’s fair to blame the team for not taking the requisite steps to augment a roster that needs more talent, more offensive savants, more athleticism.

But on balance, the results have been pretty good during the past five years, with two Finals appearances and three long playoff runs. The 2019 sign-and-trade for Jimmy Butler has yielded dividends beyond any reasonable expectations.

Is this Heat era mildly disappointing, to an extent? Yes, because there hasn’t been a championship or a missing piece added to the core. But a failure? Absolutely not.

SO WHAT’S FAIR?

But some criticism seems valid, and here would be our biggest issues:

What happened to the front office that pounced on opportunities like ravenous sharks in the first 15 years of the Riley regime — trades for Alonzo Mourning, Tim Hardaway and Shaquille O’Neal, followed by the brilliantly executed plan to assemble the best Big 3 in 21st century NBA?

“Wake up; the offseason is here,” respected ESPN analyst/reporter Zach Lowe said this week, in identifying the Heat and Bucks as the two teams that have had the worst offseason so far. “They haven’t done much. They don’t have any tools. It’s kind of sad to just watch them stand in place.”

The Heat has assuredly tried. But it’s a bottom-line business, and this is the bottom line: During the past two years, seven teams have added players who were All-Stars in the past 15 months: Boston (Jrue Holiday), Knicks (Jalen Brunson), Bucks (Damian Lillard), Cleveland (Donovan Mitchell), Indiana (Pascal Siakam), Philadelphia (Paul George) and Dallas (Kyrie Irving).

The Heat’s big acquisition this decade — Kyle Lowry — didn’t approach All-Star form here. Terry Rozier, who has never been an All Star but whose scoring was needed, came at the cost of a first-round pick that puts three future Heat first-rounders out of play in trade talks, per NBA rules.

And this, too, seems reasonable to ask:

Where is the outside-the-box creativity we have seen from Panthers general manager Bill Zito, who courageously traded the team’s most skilled scorer (Jonathan Huberdeau) plus defenseman MacKenzie Weegar and a lottery-protected first-round pick for superstar Matthew Tkachuk in July 2022, one of many moves that helped catapult the Panthers to a championship?

Where is the foresight to sell high on assets, as Zito did with Huberdeau and Weegar and as Dolphins general manager Chris Grier did when he parlayed Laremy Tunsil into two first-rounders and a second-round pick?

Where is the aggressiveness we’ve seen from other teams, to pounce on assets that are being sold low, as the Celtics displayed when they snagged Kristaps Porzingis in a deal that landed Washington modest returns?

The Heat thrived in an era when teams squirreled away cap space, and Miami could rely on the balmy winters, the lack of state income tax and the organization’s and Riley’s cache to add talent, as it did in landing LeBron James and Chris Bosh.

But when the 76ers signed George this past week, he became the first max-level player to change teams, via free agency, this decade.

Teams that emerge from the pack now typically find top-10-caliber players in the draft (Boston with Jayson Tatum, Denver with Nikola Jovic, Milwaukee with Giannis Antetokounmpo) or excel in collecting assets that can be parlayed into trades for All-Star-caliber players.

The Heat has generally drafted well (Precious Achiuwa over Tyrese Maxey notwithstanding), and found a top-25 player in Bam Adebayo, but haven’t landed a generational talent in the draft since Dwyane Wade in 2003.

The bigger issue, though, is that the Heat hasn’t mastered the asset management game, which has become critical to NBA success.

It has consistently come up short in that regard this decade, because the Heat never seems to have enough first-round draft inventory to offer in trades and because they seemingly think more of some of their players than the rest of the league does.

Because of first-round picks sent away in the Butler and Terry Rozier trades and protections that the Heat requested on those picks, Miami can offer only one first-round pick in future trades (2030 or 2031). That’s not nearly enough to make competitive offers when top players become available in the trade market.

In our view, the Heat’s decision to keep Max Strus for the 2023 playoff run — even while knowing he likely couldn’t be re-signed for cap/tax reasons — was justified because he contributed to a Finals run. Same with Gabe Vincent.

But if the Heat loses all four of its recent developmental players (Strus, Vincent and current free agents Caleb Martin and Haywood Highsmith) without getting anything back (beyond a 2026 second-round pick for Strus), it’s fair to ask if that was the best way to manage those four assets collectively. In the Heat’s defense, Miami last week made a very strong offer to Martin that he rejected.

It’s fair to question the Heat for being supremely selective and backing away from pursuits from some players who carry baggage, including Kyrie Irving.

While efforts have been — and continue to be — made to augment, the perception is that the Heat hasn’t been as aggressive as others in trying to improve.

The Heat cannot be blamed for Portland’s lack of interest in Miami’s assets. But instead of merely taking no for an answer and taking a passive approach and letting weeks pass without contact between the teams last week, couldn’t the Heat have been more persistent (having one owner call the other, for example) or discreetly worked with Lillard’s agent to formulate a devilish plan to force the Blazers’ hand, such as making clear to the Blazers that he would become a James Harden-type distraction in training camp — or publicly rip the organization — if he wasn’t traded to Miami?

(Such coordinated Heat/Lillard efforts would need to have been discreet to avoid an NBA fine.)

The opening days of free agency haven’t inspired confidence, aside from the value signing of skilled three-point shooter Alec Burks.

The Heat inexplicably prioritized 35-year-old Kevin Love, who received only 31 minutes in the first round against Boston because of matchup issues, over Highsmith, who has the three-and-D skill set that’s more helpful against most of the teams that have passed the Heat in the standings.

And why commit $4 million guaranteed to Love in 2025-26 when the Heat might need that cap space if Butler bolts in free agency next summer?

Here’s the other issue: Why would the Heat remain so committed to a core that went 40-39 when Butler, Adebayo and Herro were healthy the past three years and lost 12 of its last 13 home games (by 152 points) against good, healthy opponents?

Why would the Heat remain so committed to this group when Butler exhibited clear decline in the basket area last season, often no longer resembling the elite player on display in the 2022 and 2023 playoffs?

Yes, the Heat knows it needs to add a quality player to that core, which is again proving difficult. But shouldn’t the Heat at least consider a rebuild instead of stubbornly insisting that this group can be much of the nucleus of a title contender if healthy?

Let’s be clear about this: All of these decisions aren’t made solely by Riley. People who have negotiated with the Heat in the past two years have been told that CEO Nick Arison and Erik Spoelstra also are consulted on personnel decisions. Owner Micky Arison must sign off on moves with tax implications.

The Heat’s strategy now? Explore every avenue and hope that a good player becomes available via the trade market, and hope that it has the assets to acquire that player. The front office also is seeking ways to maximize its $7 million under the second apron.

Efforts are being made, we’ve made assured. But at some point, efforts must again be parlayed into action, just as they were impressively during Riley’s first two decades here.

For the moment, the Heat seems in purgatory, unable (so far) to amass the assets needed to compete with the league’s best but unwilling to take a step back for hopes of a better tomorrow.

This isn’t a bad roster, and the Heat will remind you that it was Finals team 14 months ago, when Butler was playing at an otherworldly level that his body might not allow him to again replicate.

But being stuck with a play-in caliber team is an unsettling, discouraging predicament for a franchise that had set such a high bar.