How would a successful season be quantified for Miami Heat?
Q: Ira, let’s keep it simple with the season starting: What’s a good season for the Heat? – Danny.
A: Well, that’s as simple as it gets . . . and also as complex as it gets. Pat Riley, of course, would have you believing it’s championship or bust, after three trips to the Eastern Conference finals and no titles over the last four years. But much has changed with this roster, this conference and this league. On paper, this is not a championship roster. It isn’t. But I’m not sure that last season’s roster was an NBA Finals roster, and it proved to be just that. Based on where this team stands now, and where the East stands, I think a true playoff berth – not another play-in scramble – and winning at least one series would produce a level of satisfaction for a team that was unable to land Damian Lillard, Bradley Beal or Jrue Holiday this offseason. Conference finals certainly would come off as overachieving. Then again, a team with Erik Spoelstra as coach sort of expects to overachieve. So there is that, as well. Still, at this moment, expecting this roster to make it past Boston or Milwaukee would appear a reach. Reachable, but a reach.
Q: I simply have to get this annoying idea off my chest. This summer The Heat were penny-wise and dollar foolish with Gabe Vincent. And now we have to root for a team that is very weak at point guard. Certainly Kyle Lowry has the ability to be a very good player for parts of the season. He simply is not going to make 75 to 82 games. Heat ownership has been so terrified by the tax that they did not do the team right at point guard. I get waiting for Damian Lillard, but they never were going to get him and they knew it for a long time. Top teams have to go into the tax or simply field a team of mediocre players. Vincent started much of the season and all of the playoffs. If that’s not championship caliber then I don’t know what is. – Rolando, Borrego Springs, Calif.
A: A few things. While the Heat were getting ghosted by the Blazers, it did not mean they had given up on the Damian Lillard possibilities. For a player that good, you hope and wait. As for the tax, the Heat already are well into the tax, with the NBA’s sixth-highest payroll. So it comes down to the thought of whether you believe Gabe Vincent is an $11 million player per season. And remember, that is a decision that had to be made in June, not one that would wait for other outcomes. To me, the greater surprise was not adding a veteran backup at point guard, at the same minimum wage as what is being spent on the back end of the Heat roster. And now, even Ish Smith is gone.
Q: It is beyond understanding that Erik Spoelstra and the Heat would play Haywood Highsmith and Caleb Martin at power forward over Nikola Jovic and Orlando Robinson. – Vip.
A: No, it is not. Right now, Haywood Highsmith and Caleb Martin are better than Nikola Jovic and Orlando Robinson. And you don’t just play height just because of height. Both Haywood and Caleb are capable of guarding up. They also are highly capable of switching to maximize the Heat’s team defense. That’s not the case, at the moment, with either Nikola or Orlando.
