With Tyler Herro slated to miss the first month of the season due to an injury, the Miami Heat were not supposed to be good. They weren't even supposed to be able to tread above water. However, with their strong start to the season, the Heat are not just surviving (and thriving) without Herro, they're also learning an important lesson that perhaps they should've already known a long time ago.
And it's this idea that while Herro is a good player, there's a strong case to be made that his talent is a dime a dozen across the league. In a vacuum, the Heat's early-season success may have the front office second-guessing what they should do with Herro as he inches closer toward the end of his current contract with the team.
This is not to say that Herro doesn't hold value for the Heat; he does. However, if Miami is not going to miss a beat with him out of the lineup, it should give them pause when deciding whether they should gift him an above-market-value contract extension.
The Heat pushed against an early contract extension for Herro
Maybe the Heat was already beginning to realize that. With the opportunity to sign Herro to an early contract extension, Miami decided against it. The Heat let the October contract extension window for Herro come and go with little momentum toward getting a deal done.
In the end, it's a move that could end up working out for both sides, but the Heat clearly weren't in a position where they were ready to commit long-term money to Herro - especially not at the number that he (and his camp) were probably asking for.
Herro was eligible for a three-year, $150 million contract extension. Even while coming off the best season of his career, the Heat clearly weren't comfortable offering that level of a contract extension, nor perhaps anything relatively close to it.
And the success that the Heat have been experiencing through the very early portion of this season seems to back up that stance.
For as good as Herro has been over the last few seasons for the Heat, it is quite noteworthy that a player like Norman Powell has so freely come in and been almost just as productive.
I'm not sure if I would go all the way to say that Powell is just as good as Herro, but the fact that the Heat have gotten off to such a great start without Herro should give the front office something to think about.
Essentially, this is the question that the front office must answer in the next few months: Is Herro so special that he's worth roughly $20 million more than a player like Powell? Because there's a very good chance that Herro's next contract is going to be worth that much more than a player like Powell.
In this way, there's a chance that Herro's injury may have been a huge blessing in disguise for the Heat, especially if it does end up giving them some much-needed clarity on where his value should stand within the organization.