If the Miami Heat want to challenge for the Eastern Conference throne next year, they need to hope the Kevin Durant trade sweepstakes plays out in their favor. If it doesn't, well, they're going nowhere special during the 2025-26 season. And you know what? That might be a good thing.
Because it will force the Heat to consider ditching star-or-bust hopes and prioritize maximizing what is, right now, a progressively shaky future.
This isn't to say fans should necessarily be rooting for Miami to miss out on KD. The Heat are one of three teams—along with the Houston Rockets and San Antonio Spurs—on his list of preferred destinations. And since he's entering the final year of his contract, he will have at least some say in where he goes next. Coupled with his age (he turns 37 in September), this ensures Miami will not be forking over the Desmond Bane or Mikal Bridges special when it acquires him.
If Durant lands elsewhere, though, the Heat will have no choice but to pivot.
Miami cannot pivot to another star
This potential pivot will not include another superstar-trade pursuit. It can’t. Other big names will become available, but the Heat don’t have the assets to go out and get them. They barely have enough to remain in the Kevin Durant conversation.
Miami can’t trade more than three outright first-rounders this summer, and doesn’t have the kind of blue-chip youngsters over whom trade partners will salivate. Kel’el Ware, Jaime Jaquez Jr. and Nikola Jovic are all intriguing, but none of them profile as talents around whom teams can structure entire rebuilds.
Any pivot from the Heat will instead require more self-reflection, and the brutal honesty about their situation that comes with it. The only way they will be able to take a dramatic step forward is to retreat at least one gigantic step backwards.
The Heat may have not choice but to blow it up
“Rebuilding” isn’t a word found in team president Pat Riley’s vernacular. He will have to get over it if Miami misses out on Durant.
Everything at that point must be on the table, even the most nuclear scenarios. That includes gauging market values for Bam Adebayo and Tyler Herro. Selling off your stars is extreme, but it’s not an overreaction. For as talented as Adebayo and Herro are, both have already shown they cannot be the engine of a championship-caliber offense. They are each better off as second options. And if Miami isn’t equipped to find a No. 1 via trade, it must turn to the draft.
Here’s the thing: The Heat cannot go the draft-and-develop route with Adebayo and Herro. So long as they are both on the roster, this team will be trapped in that uncomfortable gray area, too good to tank, not nearly good enough to win anything special.
At the very least, the Heat must consider a gap year
A full-on commitment to resetting through the draft is much tougher to pull off when the Heat don’t control all of their own first-round picks. They will send a lottery-protected 2027 selection to the Charlotte Hornets. If it doesn’t convey next June, it becomes unprotected in 2028.
This incentivizes the Heat to explore a gap year or two. Going this direction lets them keep Herro and/or Adebayo, but only if they put them on a load-management program that optimizes the team’s 2026 draft pick.
From there, Miami would enter next summer with a really good first-rounder, a more seasoned Ware, Bam, Herro, and $30-plus million in cap space that could climb past $50 million if Andrew Wiggins declines his player option or gets traded for expiring money.
Is that enough of a baseline to make impact moves and return to championship contention in 2026-27? That’s debatable. But figuring that out sure beats the Heat continuing to spin their wheels near the bottom of the middle.