After being eliminated in the first round of the 2025 playoffs, the Heat had a pretty successful offseason a year ago, re-signing role players Davion Mitchell and Dru Smith to team-friendly deals and pulling off one of the trade heists of the summer by landing Norman Powell in exchange for Kyle Anderson and Kevin Love.
Mitchell, who played the best basketball of his career after being traded to Miami at the 2025 deadline, carried over that strong performance to his first full year in Miami, averaging a career-high 6.5 assists per game and making 39.5% of his three-point tries while providing his usual excellent defense as the team’s starting point guard. Smith, who had made just 38 total NBA appearances and was coming off a torn Achilles, turned into a reliable reserve for head coach Erik Spoelstra, appearing in 70 games.
And after being acquired for two veteran backups who weren’t in the Heat’s plans going forward, Powell earned the first All-Star nod of his career, averaging 23.0 PPG on a terrific .474/.396/.843 shooting line prior to the break before nagging injuries slowed him down in the second half.
Still, the Heat’s roster remained short on impact talent, especially with 2025 All-Star Tyler Herro missing the first month of the season while recovering from ankle surgery and being limited to 33 overall appearances due to a series of additional ailments. It also didn’t help that Miami was devoting more than $26MM of its team salary to Terry Rozier, who had a miserable 2024/25 season and then didn’t play at all in ’25/26 after being arrested in connection with a federal investigation into illegal gambling.
Bam Adebayo continued to serve as an effective defensive anchor for the Heat and submitted one of the most unexpected historic scoring performances in recent league history when he racked up 83 points on March 10 against the Wizards. But Adebayo also shot a career-low 44.2% from the field for the season and isn’t a superstar-level alpha capable of contending for MVP awards and single-handedly leading his team to the postseason.
The Heat did improve their regular season record to 43-39, winning six more games than they had the year before, but that wasn’t enough to make the playoffs in a more competitive Eastern Conference. In fact, it wasn’t even enough to earn Miami more than a single postseason contest — the team was eliminated by the Hornets in the 9/10 play-in game, which Adebayo exited early due to a back injury.
Since making the NBA Finals as a No. 8 seed in 2023, the Heat have performed more like a typical middle-of-the-pack team than one capable of turning it on in the playoffs, losing back-to-back first-round series in 2024 and 2025 and then failing to crack the top eight this spring. Based on the draft lottery changes the NBA is implementing, which will give play-in teams a more viable chance to earn a top draft pick, being stuck in the middle may no longer be as undesirable as in the past, but it’s clear Pat Riley and the Heat are sick of it.
Under Riley, Miami has never shown any desire to go into rebuilding mode. When the team starts to get stuck in a rut, the Heat don’t take a step back — they take bigger swings. That philosophy helped them land LeBron James and Chris Bosh in 2010 and Jimmy Butler in 2019. And by all accounts, they’re going star hunting again this offseason, pushing to add Giannis Antetokounmpo‘s name to the list of notable players who have taken their talents to South Beach.
While trading for Antetokounmpo is clearly the Heat’s top priority entering the 2026 offseason, the front office will have a ton of work to do whether or not its pursuit of the Bucks star is successful, either to build out a supporting cast around him and Adebayo or to pivot to a viable Plan B.
The Heat’s Offseason Plans
By all accounts, the Heat are the leader in the clubhouse for Antetokounmpo. Reports at the trade deadline indicated that Miami’s offer was the one the Bucks considered most seriously, and the Heat’s package has only gotten more compelling now that they can add this year’s No. 13 overall pick, which wasn’t possible back in February due to the Stepien rule. Still, while no team has been connected to Giannis more frequently in recent weeks than Miami, I’d be wary about assuming that those rumors mean Antetokounmpo will end up with the Heat.
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