Miami Heat: An early look at the Heat depth chart going into next season
By Duncan Smith
With multiple big trades under their belts this free agency period, the Miami Heat rotation and depth chart are starting to take form for next season.
All of a sudden, the Miami Heat look very different from the capped out squad we saw end last season. Gone are Josh Richardson and Hassan Whiteside, and in their places are Jimmy Butler and Meyers Leonard via blockbuster trades, as well as first round draft pick Tyler Herro and second round pick KZ Okpala, and along with them a surprising sense of optimism.
After all, we know what last year’s team could do, falling short of the NBA playoffs in the Eastern Conference as the most expensive team ever to miss the playoffs, but this one is certainly less of a known commodity.
Now that the new-look Heat roster is mostly assembled (aside from some final moves to bring them under the hard cap, and any other surprise trades team president Pat Riley may still have up his sleeve), it’s come time to take an early look at how the depth chart and rotation may end up shaking out.
Somehow they’ve managed to make a roster which was already fairly positionless last season and made it even more positionally fluid, so we’ll break the roster down in terms of primary ball-handler, wing and big, while noting which players should be expected to start for next season’s Miami Heat team.
Without further ado, we’ll get started on forecasting the Heat rotation for the 2019-20 season.