Entering Tuesday’s road bout with the Toronto Raptors, the Miami Heat continue to be the NBA‘s answer to the seesaw. Three days after securing a veritable gem of a win over Jalen Brunson and the New York Knicks, Erik Spoelstra‘s squad fell flat on its face against the Brooklyn Nets on Saturday.
For the record, that’s the same Nets crew that’s now tied with the Heat for sixth place in the East standings as of this writing. Brooklyn’s win clinched the season series and secured the playoff tie-breaker, too, which could have huge play-in ramifications down the road.
Clearly, the Heat have fallen off a rung or two since coming to within a game of an NBA Finals berth last season (and even farther since they actually played for the title in the bubble).
With that being the case, one longtime league analyst believes that Heat president Pat Riley should jump on any realistic opportunity to add another All-Star that comes his way, even if it costs the team one of their offensive focal points in Tyler Herro.
B/R: Bam Adebayo & Jimmy Butler Are the Heat’s Only ‘Untouchables’
For his latest piece of trade-related fare, Bleacher Report’s Zach Buckley dropped his list of every “untouchable” player in the Association. For the Heat, Buckley ultimately listed just two players — All-Stars Jimmy Butler and Bam Adebayo.
Conspicuous by his absence was Herro, who’s averaging 20.3 points, 5.6 rebounds, 4.3 assists and nearly one steal per contest while shooting 43.8% from the field and 37.7% from three-point range in 2022-23.
Wrote Buckley: “Tyler Herro is the next-closest thing the Heat have to a keeper, but if he could anchor a deal to get Miami the half-court scoring threat it needs to join the elite tier, that’s a move this club should make 11 times out of 10.”
Herro Has Worked to Shore Up His Biggest Weakness
While Herro is a lights-out scorer, he’s not yet a player who can carry an entire offense across 48 minutes (as Mitchell does in Cleveland). And in his earlier days with the Heat, he was something of a black hole defensively. However, he has evolved on the latter end of the court to the point that Miami can now live with the results.
“You definitely can’t target him anymore,” an Eastern Conference executive told Heavy Sports’ Sean Deveney recently.
“That does not make him Gary Payton or anything but he is not a guy you can go at and expect to get an easy bucket or expect to get a mix-up in coverage or anything. That is different. You can’t learn great defensive instincts but you can learn to be where you are supposed to be and how to take away advantages other guys have, all of that.
“To his credit, he has done that.”
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Heat Urged to Make Radical Move With Tyler Herro