New evidence suggests Heat may need to change their offense again

One of the bigger training camp stories for the Miami Heat last season revolved around their revamped pace-and-space offense. While it had its moments, especially early on in the season, the Heat still weren't better than average, at best, over the course of the year.

Considering their flawed roster, that may have been a "win" for the team overall.

But that may not be the biggest reason why the Heat may need to change their offense again heading into the new season with a revamped roster. As pointed out by NBA writer Matt Moore, the Heat currently have three of the 10 best players in the league in points per possession on pick-and-rolls as the ball-handler (minimum of 100 possessions).

In layman's terms, Davion Mitchell, Tim Hardaway Jr., and Giannis Antetokounmpo were three of the most effective players in pick-and-roll situations with the ball in their hands last season. Considering that the Heat rebuilt their offense while moving away from more traditional pick-and-roll sets, it may be time for a bit of a reversal of the team's philosophy on that end of the floor once again.

The Heat's offense will likely get another facelift

As the Heat prepare for the start of training camp, you'd have to imagine that Erik Spoelstra will likely change up the offense again, or at least be open to the idea of it. That should've already been the expectation with the mere addition of Giannis Antetokounmpo, but this recent revelation gives the team even more of an incentive to play through the pick-and-roll game more this season.

Embracing more of a space-and-pace offensive philosophy, the Heat were last - by a significant margin - in pick-and-roll action per game. The Heat averaged fewer than seven pick-and-roll actions per game, with just a 5.6 percent frequency rate.

To put those numbers in perspective, the next team that ran pick-and-rolls at a lower frequency was the Brooklyn Nets, who averaged 14 PnR actions per contest. During the 2024-25 NBA season, the Heat averaged 17.5 PnR actions per game with a 16 percent frequency rate (which was roughly in the middle of the pack for that year).

Big changes. To say the least. And they could be coming again.

It will be interesting to see what path Spoelstra elects to take with the decision on the offense. It's difficult to predict how it will unfold, one way or the other. At least initially, you'd imagine that the Heat's offense will see another facelift to start.

Where it will land by mid-season is anyone's guess, but especially with Giannis now on board, it's going to be a very interesting ride.

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