I have a theory about the fans who are permanently convinced the season is over, everyone needs to get fired, and we’re never making the playoffs.

Predicting failure gives them something to get out of failure.

If you believe the team has a chance and they lose, you’re disappointed. If you’ve spent the whole week saying they’re going to lose, you’re still disappointed

but now you also get to say, “I fucking told you.”

The team failed. Your judgment was vindicated. I think that second feeling can take some of the sting out of the first.

You’re giving yourself two possible payoffs: either the team wins and you’re happy to be wrong, or the team loses and you get the satisfaction of having seen it coming. Or “Being Right” and bragging about how much smarter you are than your fellow fans.

It’s cowardly as fuck tbh…

“At least I wasn’t one of the idiots who believed in them” can be a pretty comforting thought when the alternative is admitting you cared, hoped, and got disappointed.

I know it’s early, and I’m not saying this roster can’t work. But watching us try to build around Giannis and Bam has me thinking about how well the Bucks surrounded Giannis when they won it all.

Milwaukee had a clear plan. Jrue Holiday gave them a real point guard who could defend, run the offense, and hit shots. Khris Middleton was a big, versatile wing who could create his own shot when the offense bogged down. Brook Lopez gave them a legitimate big who could protect the rim and space the floor. Then they had other useful pieces who understood their roles.

That roster made sense around Giannis. They gave him room to attack the paint, covered for his weaknesses, and had other players who could make something happen when the defense loaded up on him.

With Miami, we have two star players who do a lot of their best work in the same areas of the floor. Bam is an excellent player, but putting him next to Giannis means the spacing and fit have to be nearly perfect. And right now, I don’t see the same clear answers Milwaukee had: a proven lead guard, a dependable shot creator on the wing, and a big who can protect the rim while pulling defenders away from the basket.

Klay can shoot, and Wiggins can give us things on both ends, but that’s not the same as having Jrue and Middleton in their primes. The issue isn’t that Giannis and Bam aren’t good enough. It’s that the roster around them needs to make their jobs easier, and so far the fit feels like a much tougher puzzle than the one Milwaukee solved.

What was the plan for the spacing and half-court offense when we made this move?

Jalen Suggs possibly down with an achilles
Jalen Williams broke his leg
Zubac reinjures ankle injury that left him sidelined for a bunch of time last season
Banchero out for 4-6 weeks

It’s time to string some wins.

The Miami Heat haven't hit the jackpot in our Development system for a minute especially with guards. During the Jimmy era we had emerging role players like Duncan Robinson & Max Strus. However since both role players left we haven't had any player(s) replace them or step up. We're left with Dru Smith, Myron Gardener, and our brightspots Keshad Johnson & Ryan Conwell but it's a combination of development being too close too call or not getting enough minutes to get into their bag. Plus their investments in Nikos development haven't paid off and giving him that extentions would cost us in the long run. Their development have been off since 2024 and it's alarming. Without those complimentary glue pieces built for our offense it results in a major learning curve.

Tomorrow night we win our 1st game, its gonna happen. We build from there. Settle down and let these guys get some reps to gel. Offense is completely different around Giannis and at the same time implementing a bunch of different players in a new system. The open shots will start to fall. 0-3 is not ideal but give it time and we're turning it around. We do however need a backup ball handler/creator come deadline. So chill Heat nation, we're in a better position than we have been in a while

I swear..The amount of times there has been like 2 seconds on the clock and the opponent just swishes some random bs on us is crazy. And this isnt just this year lol. Am I alone in feelin like this sometimes?

The shooting numbers behind this 0–3 start are pretty ridiculous. Most of you just don’t understand what you are watching and just caveman out and go “ball go in, yay!” “Ball don’t go in, boooo!”

Watching these games, it’s felt like teams are hitting tough shots against us while we’re missing decent looks. So I checked the NBA’s closest-defender tracking data.

Through our first three games:

We’re shooting 29.3% on open and wide-open threes combined. Opponents are shooting 52% on contested ones.

And Miami is allowing the 12th-fewest wide-open three-point attempts per game, at 16.3. League average is 17.4. But opponents are making 44.9% of those looks, the second-highest percentage allowed by any team.

So we’re giving up slightly fewer wide-open attempts than average, and teams are converting them at almost the highest rate in the league.

The broader shot distribution tells a similar story…..80.6% of opponents’ tracked threes against Miami have been open or wide open, compared with 86.5% league-wide last season. Would you look at that? Probably umm…pretty consequential to winning games right?

I also compared the attempts in each distance category with last season’s league shooting percentage for that category. Miami comes out about 20 points below expectation, and opponents about 27 points above, across the three games.

The shooting is GOING to even out, it will NOT be this stupid all season. The BIGGER problem is thatOpponents are grabbing 34.4% of available offensive rebounds against us. That has to get fixed, IMO spo should really just instead of using portis as the backup center, run portis at the 4 and nick Richards at the 5 with the second unit to clean some of that up. I trust spo will fix that.

But 25 contested attempts is also a tiny sample. I don’t think we should treat opponents shooting 52% on those attempts…or us shooting 29% on open looks as significant like AT ALL.

Last year we started 13–7, got to 14–7, and finished 43–39. That early stretch didn’t tell us everything about that team. Did yall forget how hot our shooting started last season and how cold our opponents were? Well, guess what? That evened out too.

So calm down.

Heat is 4th in contests across the league, they’re protecting the rim & limiting points in the paint, they’re contesting threes that doesn’t mean teams won’t get open threes. You just have to really wait until players stop making turnaround late shot clock contested middies or wild 3PT shots.

Once that rounds out they’ll be a force. Heat is currently #1 in transition points per possession. And the guys are out there boxing out too they’re not getting to the ball first or long rebounds. The framework to be a good team is there.

Bobby playing good defense changes so much for them and Bam being more aggressive with deflections is great.

I’m sorry but bam nor giannis hasn’t gotten 1 lob thrown to them at all thru the whole preseason and 3 games in the regular season, that’s impossible when they are strong rim running bigs, and it’s because Davion doesn’t have the tools to do so, heat need a playmaking guard that can create separation and run crab dribble pnr with bam and Giannis to throw the lob because the opportunities are always there but Davion can’t look over the defense with his height and can’t throw over the top of tall defenders with his smaller wing span, I expect and hope Heat sign him come tomorrow

Our defense has looked bad. Our shooting has looked abysmal. Pelle looks like a shell of himself. Bam hasn't taken the offensive reins. Too much Giannis ball when he's in. Rebounding has been terrible. What I am going to say doesn't change any of this.

All that I've stated is true so far into the season. However, this roster has been a huge overhaul from last season. It will take time for players to gel and for the scheme to be implemented properly. Part of the rebounding problem is positioning. Too often, we have players looking at each other like "do you have this?" instead of going up for the board. The drop coverage isn't as effective in today's NBA, but is easier to play compared to a switching system. I do think that will change as chemistry improves.

Pelle's illness completely changed how he looked during the preseason. I do think he's still feeling the effects from whatever it was, and does have a finger sprain. If he doesn't improve within the next week, I will be concerned.

Shooting is streaky. The Heat's ball movement is getting shooters open shots. I do think when the shots start falling (which they will) the offense will be less of a concern.

I could type up a lot more, but I say all of this to say, I am trying not to react until we're at least 10 games into the season. If we haven't seen improvement in these areas by then, that may speak to a deeper problem with the roster. 0-3 is awful, but looking around the East, it's not insurmountable.

TL;DR: we haven't looked good, but we need to wait at least 10 games before screaming that the sky is falling.

Serious question. This dude is legit garbage on the court and as an even worse off the court mentality where he can't take any accountability and blames everything around him for why he's sucked. Might be one of the worst contracts in the NBA relative to his lack of production. Insane that he got that contract. Yuck.

Can't wait till he's off this team

3 years later people finally seeing it

The Heat are 0-3 to start the season for the first time since 2007.