Stephen A. Smith takes aim at Heat player who needs to step up

As a guest star on Udonis Haslem and Mike Miller's podcast, ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith had a lot to say about the state of the Miami Heat this past week. Most notably, he called out one Heat player by name who he believes needs to step up next season -- Tyler Herro.

"I like Herro. Herro can ball. So why we talking about somebody else coming to the Heat?... We wouldn’t be talking more what Jimmy needs to do, or the Miami Heat needed, if Tyler brought his A game every night."

- Smith via The OG’s Show

This Miami core has exceeded expectations over the years. They have reached two NBA Finals and a game 7 of an Eastern Conference finals over a five-year span. However, the ultimate goal of delivering the franchise’s fourth chip has come up short. 

The Heat have lost to the eventual NBA champions in four of the last five playoffs. Now a lot of this has to do with health, as the team suffered big blows over recent playoff runs. 

More recently, Butler and Rozier missed the entirety of this year’s playoffs to season-ending injuries. But with Smith acknowledging that Herro is the team’s in-house piece that can get them over the hump, there’s a case to show that statement could be both right or wrong.