Miami Heat Either Add Another Star Or Risk Severe Relegation
If you are not getting better, you are getting worse. Simply running it back with the same team is not going to be good enough.
Big Loss With No Replacement
Unfortunately for the Miami Heat, running it back is not even an option. This offseason, the Heat lost P.J. Tucker to the 76ers.
Tucker was one of the key pieces of their team last year. He was their best on-ball defender and did just about everything on the floor.
He brought an extreme toughness and dedication about him that can’t be matched by many in the NBA. The Heat can’t truly replace P.J. Tucker, but that does not mean that they didn’t, at least, try.
There were a few players that the Heat were looking to target if they lost Tucker, including T.J. Warren. He does different things than Tucker, but he is a solid role player and a scorer who would have fit well in Miami’s system.
That is no longer an option because T.J. Warren agreed to a deal with the Nets. Warren, like so many other Miami Heat free agency targets, is off the board.
The Heat dug themselves a huge hole when they lost P.J. Tucker and they have very few options left to fill that hole. The only way to fill the hole is to add more talent.
As we witnessed with the Brooklyn Nets Big 3 disaster, talent, alone, is not going to win you a championship. But if you add a skilled player like Durant or Mitchell into a culture that thrives on maximum effort, you will get maximum results.