With the release of the Miami Heat's schedule last week, people are already looking at what the record could be for the team as they have finished at the eighth seed for the last two seasons. Both seasons resulted in different ways as in 2023 saw Miami go from the eighth seed all the way to the NBA Finals where this past year, they were eliminated in the first round by the Boston Celtics.
However, it's a new season so the question remains if the Heat can be better than the 46-36 record they were prior. This will be of discussion, but the conversation was heightened along the schedule release with ESPN's predictions of how the Eastern Conference will turn out to be with Miami fans likely to be disappointed with the outcome.
ESPN had the Heat finishing at the eighth seed for the third straight season with a 45-37 record which makes them a game worse than the year prior.
“The Heat, eliminated by the Celtics in the first round last season after reaching the NBA Finals the year prior, are projected to finish eighth in the standings — a spot familiar to Jimmy Butler & Co. after finishing there two years straight,” ESPN wrote.
There could be some validation to ESPN's prediction as looking at the Miami Heat's roster, it is virtually the same with a few exceptions being the absence of Caleb Martin who left to the Philadelphia 76ers in free agency. Plus, the Heat welcomes impressive rookies such as Kel'el Ware and Pelle Larsson and even a veteran guard in Alec Burks.
Heat confident in their team, injuries being a major factor for them
Other than that, the team still will look to their current Big three in Jimmy Butler, Bam Adebayo, and Tyler Herro which the record with all them playing not all that great as back in January during the season, they were 31-36 during the past 15 months per the Miami Herald. However, it has been reported time and time again that the Heat and President Pat Riley believe that they have a championship level team when healthy.
“Until you change the way you go about doing the things that are necessary to win, whatever they are, those things you're doing to try to win, if they aren't working, you must change,” Riley said during his end of season press conference in May. “And so that doesn't mean that change is a sinister word here. There's a lot of elements to go into a culture, erosion of a culture, being together for 30 years, generational change, problems in the NBA that our league wide when it comes to health, comes to players missing games and availability.”
“You take a look at all the the young sort of up and coming they haven't tasted it yet; OKC, Minnesota, Indiana, Boston with a new group, Orlando, etc, etc,” Riley continued. “You know, for some reason these guys are playing 70-80 games. It's a feeling more than anything else. But that's definitely a deep dive for us this summer and to player availability but so we do have to change some things. But we surely are not going to rip anything apart here.”
Jimmy Butler more motivated than ever for Heat?
Riley is right about one aspect, it's that the injuries suffered from Miami last season was worse than ever as they ranked towards the top of the NBA in missed games from players and had well over 30 different starting lineups. There is though a ton of other variables that can impact the record this season besides health which is the heightened play of Jimmy Butler since he is in a “prove it” year as he seeks a contract extension in the next offseason per Shams Charania.
“Jimmy Butler, he's going to play out next season under his current contract with the Heat,” Charania said. “I'm told he will not be signing an extension with the Heat or any other team ahead of his opt-out in 2025 free agency. This clears up any notion of a trade demand out of Jimmy Butler. He intends to play out next season.”
With Heat non-committal on contract extension, Butler will make a case
This news comes after Riley's comments made after his end of season press conference where he was non-committal in giving Butler a contract extension.
“Well, you know, we don't have to do that for a year and so we have not discussed that internally right now but we have to look at that and then making that kind of commitment,” Riley said. “We don't have to do it until 25 actually, but we'll see. We haven't made a decision on it. And we really haven't really in earnest. discussed it. So we'll see what happens.”
“Well, I mean, if you request we can either accept or we can say we're going to think about it,” Riley continued. “We've not made a decision on it and I think you can make too much out of this. You still got two years left on the contract. Theoretically he's got a player option, but that's something that we have to give some real thought to based on a lot of factors. I don't want to go through the litany of factors right now because they all go up into different hypotheticals, but yeah, that's a big decision on our part to commit those kinds of resources unless you're somebody who's really going to be there and available every single night, that's the truth.”
Final prediction on the record for the Heat this upcoming season
A lot of things need to happen in order for the Miami Heat to increase their win total this season with the biggest reasons being player availability and the motivation from Jimmy Butler. Looking at the schedule, the Heat has to take care of home games more than they did in the season prior which was disappointing and perform better in trechrous road stints.
While the Heat are always in the market to shock the world, the record should be around the same with maybe a win or two more.
Prediction: 47-35
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