One thing is abundantly clear following the release of the 2025-26 NBA regular season schedule: The NBA does not find the Miami Heat especially interesting—or particularly good.
The proof is in their number of nationally televised games. After having 16 on the docket in 2023-24, the Heat this coming season are down to…five. That ranks 23rd in the entire league, and well, let’s just say the teams with fewer marquee billings aren’t exactly the company you want to keep. They include the Charlotte Hornets (three), Chicago Bulls (three), Brooklyn Nets (two), New Orleans Pelicans (two), Toronto Raptors (two), Utah Jazz (two), and Washington Wizards (two).
For those keeping score at home, the league apparently feels only slightly better about the Heat than they do about seven potential bottom-feeders, only one of whom has a realistic chance of making any playoff noise (Toronto). That’s what they call a big yikes.
It also feels at least a little extreme.
The NBA is sleeping on the Heat
No one needs to pretend the Heat have turned into juggernauts over the offseason. They have not. Their summer transactions were clearly rooted in an attempt to preserve assets and financial flexibility for the potential run at Giannis Antetokounmpo on which they and so many other teams are clearly waiting.
That doesn’t mean they failed to get better. On the contrary, they have significantly juiced the offense with the acquisition of Norman Powell, who they acquired for pennies on the dollar. Even by downgrading from Duncan Robinson to Simone Fontecchio, they have also managed to piece together one of the Association’s deepest rotations.
This almost assuredly isn’t a 55-win team. The Heat are one star short on that front. Failing a disastrous brush with injury bugs, this isn’t a 29-to-38-win squad, either.
Tyler Herro and Bam Adebayo should use this as fuel
Professional athletes are masters at finding chips to place upon their shoulders. The NBA has just given Bam Adebayo and Tyler Herro another hoist upon themselves. That feels pretty dangerous, particularly when Herro is already ferrying a $150 million-sized one.
On-court products do not always drive national-TV exposure. The Boston Celtics rank eighth in marquee billings, even though they have entered coupon-clipping mode, and have only one healthy star on the roster.
Market size and mystique will always be a factor. But there is no world in which the Heat should be less compelling than next year’s Celtics—not as Boston telegraphs to the rest of the league it fully intends to lean into a gap year.
Finishing behind the Phoenix Suns (nine), Sacramento Kings (nine), and Portland Trail Blazers (eight) is certainly questionable. None of those teams have more star power than the Heat. The same goes for the Tyrese Haliburton-less Indiana Pacers, though they at least are working off an NBA Finals cameo.
Without question, the Heat would have more national TV tilts if they still had Jimmy Butler, or had they traded for another big name. This makes sense on some level. Or it’s at least how things work. But placing them behind some of these teams feels like a slight to the appeal of Herro and Adebayo as primetime players.
And even if it’s not, Miami will be much better off if both cornerstones treat it as one anyway.