MIAMI – As Miami Heat star Tyler Herro will miss the start of the season with a foot injury, there is no denying that the team will look for answers to keep the ship afloat until he returns. After the Heat guard underwent ankle surgery, the team announced that it would take eight weeks to return from the injury and surgery, with the 25-year-old providing more information on the recovery process.

Speaking during Miami's media day on Monday morning, Herro would say that he will be “back in the next eight to 12 weeks,” as he walked in with a slight limp. However, he would remain optimistic and say he told head coach Erik Spoelstra that he will return in six weeks, as he also expressed he is “ahead of schedule” regarding the recovery path.

“I told [Spoelstra] I’ll be back in six weeks, so we’ll see,” Herro said. “We’ll see what they let me do. But I’m doing everything I can, icing it five times a day. I’m doing everything I can to get back on the court and be available. I just can’t wait to get back out there and playing.”

“Right now, honestly, I’m ahead of schedule as far as the swelling and things like that,” Herro continued. “All that stuff looks amazing. I should get my stitches out in the next couple days, at some point next week. From there, I can start strengthening my foot and all that good stuff. So I’m doing everything I can to come back before eight weeks.”

Herro is coming off his best season in the NBA, averaging 23.9 points, 5.5 assists, and 5.2 rebounds per game while shooting 47.2 percent from the field and 37.5 percent from three-point range, leading to an All-Star nod.

Heat's Tyler Herro recalls when he first felt discomfort 

Miami Heat guard Tyler Herro (14) celebrates with forward Andrew Wiggins (22) against the Chicago Bulls during the third quarter at Kaseya Center.
Sam Navarro-Imagn Images

With the Heat preparing for the 2025-26 season, the start of the year will be an interesting one to follow as the fanbase monitors the injury to Herro, which is no doubt a strange one. The team would say on Sept. 19 that the surgery was a success in alleviating the “posterior impingement syndrome in his left ankle.”

When Herro gave more insight, he would go into feeling a “crazy pinch” in his foot during a July workout at Miami-Dade Community College. Speaking to a foot specialist, Herro would relay that he was “born with an extra bone in the back of my foot” and expressed how it impacted him.

“I was doing my warmup, and I just felt like a crazy pinch in my foot out of nowhere,” Herro said. “It was very random. We didn’t know what it was, so I got an MRI. Nothing showed up on the MRI. Then a foot specialist said I was born with an extra bone in the back of my foot. It’s like a very small bone. No one could see what that bone was doing.”

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“I just couldn’t jump and get fully to my toes,” Herro continued. “That’s ultimately what I need to jump and use to get by guys. I have to be able to push off that foot, and it was locked, honestly. So every time I would try to push my foot forward, it would stop at a certain point and I didn’t have full range of motion in my foot. … This was actually a bone blocking my foot, so I had to take that bone out.”

Heat's Tyler Herro on the injury coming after career-best season

As the rumors around the Heat will continue regarding Herro's injury and when he will return, the goal first and foremost is for him to get back to the All-Star level he was at last season. Herro would say to ClutchPoints that there was a frustration level with the injury at the time, but he believes “everything happens for a reason” and is confident he can return to a higher level.

“For sure. I had an imagination of how everything was going to happen, you know, before this foot injury, but I feel like everything happens for a reason, and at the end of the day, this isn't picture perfect for me, but, you know, I keep my head down, keep working,” Herro said.

“You know, coming off, obviously, my best season of my career, and I feel like I'm gonna get right back to that level very, very easily,” Herro continued. “Obviously, it's gonna take some work and time to get there, but I have, obviously, the most confidence in myself to get back to where I was, even at a higher level.”

At any rate, Miami starts training camp on Tuesday at Florida Atlantic University in preparation for the regular season opener on Oct. 22 against the Orlando Magic.