The Miami Heat are off to a great start this season.
They are 12-5, Jimmy Butler is fitting in seamlessly, Justise Winslow continues to show improvement and their perimeter shooting is much better than expected thanks to Kendrick Nunn and Co.
But it also seems pretty clear that the Heat remain a notch below the very top teams in the Eastern Conference and if they want to break into that elite tier, they are going to have to make some moves.
Now, Pat Riley has been very straightforward about maintaining cap flexibility, so Miami almost surely won't be taking on any players with multi-year deals, but there are are a couple of areas the Heat can shore up between now and the February trade deadline.
Let's go over them:
Front Court Depth
Bam Adebayo has been awesome at center for Miami and is the main reason why the Heat jettisoned Hassan Whiteside this past offseason, but outside of Adebayo, Miami doesn't have much depth at the five.
Kelly Olynyk is a good player who can spread the floor and play very solid positional defense, but he is more of a power forward than a center and doesn't really have the chops to bang with some of the bigger centers in the NBA.
Meyers Leonard has started every game, but he has been playing the four, and while he is fairly productive, there is a reason why he was never able to truly find himself in Portland.
Otherwise, the Heat are incredibly thin up front and could really use another big body to help out Adebayo.
There should be some of those types of guys available at the deadline and they don't even have to be stars. They just have to be centers who can play some defense, get some rebounds and eat some minutes to bridge the gap between Adebayo and the rest of the front line.
Olynyk and Leonard are certainly important pieces in what Miami does, but neither fills the need that the Heat have.
Another Ball-Handler
The Heat have one nominal point guard on their roster — Goran Dragic. That's it.
Now, in a league where positions are becoming more and more arbitrary, that isn't as big of a deal as it once was, but regardless, it does show that Miami is lacking in ball-handlers and can really use another one.
To be fair, Butler runs the offense a whole lot, and Winslow has shown considerable improvement in his facilitating, so it's not like Dragic is literally the only guy the Heat have who can handle the rock, but it never hurts to have some depth there.
Generally, those secondary ball-handlers are very easy to acquire during the season, as teams out of playoff contention frequently dump backup point guards for second-round picks.
This is something that should absolutely be on Miami's priority list in the coming months, as it would be nice to have Butler be able to focus more on his scoring rather than having to create for everybody else — especially when Dragic is off the floor.
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