During Pat Riley’s 27 seasons with the Miami Heat, the franchise has won three NBA championships. The Heat has also made nine appearances in the Eastern Conference finals and six appearances in the NBA Finals during that time.
So, Riley and the Heat have been faced with the decision they’ll have to make this offseason many times before: Is the best option to bring back last season’s core that finished just one win from advancing to the NBA Finals or are big changes needed to reinvigorate the team?
“If we ran it back, we would have a very good team,” Riley said Monday afternoon during his 45-minute news conference to wrap up the season just about a week after the Heat’s playoff run came to an abrupt end in Game 7 of the East finals. “But you have be, I think, very proactive in looking at how you’re going to improve.
“You can always think about running it back and be successful. But is that going to be what’s going to lead to a championship? That’s all you think about.”
The last time the Heat lost in the conference finals was in 2005, and there were significant changes made to a roster led by Dwyane Wade and Shaquille O’Neal. The Heat pulled off a five-team, 13-player deal to acquire Antoine Walker from the Boston Celtics, and Jason Williams and James Posey from the Memphis Grizzlies that offseason before going on to win the first NBA championship in franchise history in 2006.
“I think we all realize that we can always use more, especially when you’ve gone through a season and then you’ve gotten results and then you begin to really analyze the result and why it wasn’t as good as maybe you thought it should be,” Riley continued. “So we’re always going to try to improve the team. I think that’s what it’s about.”
If the decision is made to keep this past season’s core intact, there’s a very clear path to making that happen.
The Heat currently has 10 players under contract for next season: Jimmy Butler ($37.7 million), Bam Adebayo ($30.4 million), Kyle Lowry ($28.3 million), Duncan Robinson ($16.9 million), P.J. Tucker ($7.4 million player option), Tyler Herro ($5.7 million), Max Strus ($1.8 million nonguaranteed salary), Gabe Vincent ($1.8 million nonguaranteed salary), Omer Yurtseven ($1.8 million nonguaranteed salary) and Haywood Highsmith ($1.8 million nonguaranteed salary).
Including cap holds, that puts the Heat at about $135.6 million committed to salaries for next season if Tucker opts in and the team guarantees the salaries of Strus, Vincent, Yurtseven and Highsmith for next season.
Next season’s salary cap and luxury tax line have not yet been set, but projections indicate the salary cap will be about $122 million and the luxury-tax threshold will be about $149 million. The Heat is expected to operate as an over-the-cap team since it does not hold cap space.
Entering free agency above the cap allows the Heat to leverage the Bird Rights of its free agents to bring some of them back. Miami would also have the the $10.3 million nontaxpayer midlevel exception and $4.1 biannual exception in one scenario or the $6.4 million taxpayer midlevel exception in another scenario at its disposal if it moves forward over the cap.
There are five players from the Heat’s season-ending roster who are set to enter free agency this summer: Dewayne Dedmon, Udonis Haslem, Markieff Morris and Victor Oladipo will be unrestricted free agents, and Caleb Martin will become a restricted free agent as long as the Heat extends a $2.1 million qualifying offer to him ahead of free agency.
There are realistic avenues for the Heat to re-sign each of those players.
Tucker could also become an unrestricted free agent if he opts out of his contract for next season. But Riley made it clear that one of the Heat’s top priorities this summer will be to make sure Tucker is back with the team next season.
“P.J. is a cornerstone,” Riley said. “I would love to have Tuck back next year. He’s part of our core. He’s special.”
But the Heat won’t come back with this exact 15-man roster next season. At the very least, there will likely be small changes on the back end of the rotation.
The one obstacle the Heat will face if it takes this path, though, is the luxury tax. While not impossible, it’s going to be challenging for the Heat to avoid the luxury tax if it decides to bring back most of this past season’s roster.
The good news for the Heat is the punitive repeater tax (when a team is over the tax at least three times during a four-year period) is not currently a concern. The last time Miami finished a season as a tax team was in 2019-20, as it avoided the tax in the last two seasons.
Of course, the Heat could also choose to make big changes this offseason if the right opportunity presents itself in the form of a disgruntled star asking for a trade.
“If there’s one out there, throw him to me,” Riley said when asked if he believes the Heat’s needs another elite scorer alongside Butler to win a championship.”You can always use more. But it’s got to be a good fit, but not at the cost of doing something that could be sort of prohibitive. So we will look, we will explore. We always do this.”
That’s why guard Donovan Mitchell will be a popular name often linked to the Heat this offseason. Shortly after Utah Jazz coach Quin Snyder resigned, ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski reported on Sunday that Mitchell is “unsettled, unnerved and wondering what it means for the franchise’s future.”
MItchell, 25, who has been selected as an All-Star in each of the last three seasons, has four years and $135 million left on his contract. He’s due $30.4 million next season.
According to The Athletic, the Jazz “have made it clear they intend on building a roster around Mitchell. The only thing that could possibly pry Mitchell from the Jazz at this point is a monstrous offer. They simply don’t have the intention of trading him.” It would likely require a trade demand from Mitchell to get the Jazz to consider dealing him.
In the hypothetical scenario that Mitchell becomes available, any Heat trade package would almost definitely need to include Herro and draft picks to get the Jazz’s attention. The Heat is currently eligible to include an unprotected 2022 or 2023 and 2028 first-round selection in a trade.
“If there’s something from outside that unveils itself that doesn’t cost us an arm and a leg [to fill that need], I would always be interested in looking at that,” Riley said. “But I think we have what we need internally.”
If a star doesn’t become available on the trade market, the Heat will rely on its young core to take another step forward next season.
During Monday’s news conference, Riley mentioned Adebayo reaching “another level” offensively with “more consistency to create good shots and score.” Riley also said the next step for Herro “is to become a two-way player” and continue to improve defensively.
Whichever route the Heat chooses to take this offseason, it’s clear that Riley believes the team is close to winning its fourth championship in franchise history. At 77 years old, he plans to finish the job before he moves on.
“I definitely feel an obligation to finish this build,” he said. “So if we’re three years into this build then I don’t want to do just another three years of just building this team. I think we’re in that window of internal improvement.
“We got a great, great, great player in Jimmy Butler. We know that. We have a lot of real experienced veterans. So we put together a team that got to the Eastern Conference finals, and it was bitter. It was a bitter loss. The dragon hasn’t actually left my body yet from that loss.”
