The Miami Heat exited last season with very bleak hopes. In just one off-season though, that bleak outlook has sprouted into infinite hope for the future.
The Miami Heat were in a very peculiar place as last season ended. They were filled to the rim salary cap wise and with players that seemed as though they could not be flipped into better pieces.
While the Miami Heat have had decent to great NBA draft classes before, Pat Riley has also stated publicly that he isn’t the biggest fan of the NBA Draft. This was crucial because although it was a pick at the end of the lottery, the Miami Heat still had a semi-high draft pick to look forward to. However with this team’s status at the time, Pat Riley’s outlook on the NBA draft, and the boatload of mercurial talent after Zion Williamson, no one was sure how that would turn out.
It was fairly well known that the Miami Heat had a few guys in their development system that had potential, but no one knew exactly who, when, or if they would ever turn into full-time NBA regular-season roster types of guys. Well, all of those factors seemed to work in the favor of the Miami Heat for once this offseason.
When looking at the salary cap situation, it seemed impossible that the Miami Heat would be able to make vast improvements to their roster. Not only were they able to improve though, but they were able to bring in a star player, a top 15-20 guy in the league at a minimum in Jimmy Butler.