Miami Heat Season Review

[Silogical]

Miami Heat Season Review

After a disappointing finals where the Heat could not hit an outside shot, outside shooting becaem the top priority heading into the off-season.

Draft:
#12 Landry Shamet. Shamet was the best shooter in the draft who will let it fly. In time Shamet should develop into a Beal/Thompson type player, exactly what we need. Shamet’s steal rating should come into play when we trasisiton away from the zone for DDS19.
#13 Lacking roster space the Heat trade #13 for future assets. Had we made the pick Davon Reed/Burutis/Metu were high on the Heats Bigboard.

Free Agency:
Free Agency was tough as the new agents cared less about winning than the old agents. Ricky Rubio ultimately signed a 1 year max contract.

Key trades:
PJ Dozier for Jabari Bird
This was a tough trade to make after we dedicated so much into developing Dozier, and so little was invested into Bird. In the end it was a trade we needed to make to balance the roster

The regular season was a success. Despite losing Joshua Smith we went on to win 59 games, more than the previous year with a healthy Smith. The playoffs were a completely different story. The struggle started against the cavs where due to injury we were forced to play an aging Sanders. We barely get by the cavs just to be swept by the Pistons. The Piston series came down to who do we stop SJJ or Stauskas. Game one we chose to prevent outside shooting. SJJ got Simmons in foul trouble and we quickly realized that will not work. The zone came back and The Pistons shooters stepped up to the challenge. Would Joshua Smith made a difference in this series? That’s hard to say Simmons and Smith combined mightve been able to get SJJ in foul trouble, before SJJ gets my entire front court in foul trouble.

Looking ahead the heat are planning for DDS19 and have been for the past year. Zone will likely not be utilized as shutting out opposing 3 point shooters will be our highest priority. The biggest question mark will be if Joshua Smith can play man to man defense. The last time Smith played man to man was in the youth league where players not even in the league today lit him up. Smith has made tremendous progress from that point so we are confident he will continue to dominate in DDS19 but a back-up plan might be needed just in case.

The Heat plan on targeting some underrated free agents. #1 is Malik Beasley we feel he will transition beautifully into next season. #2 is Skal Labissiere. As teams focus on stopping players at the 3 point line and at the rim the mid-range will open up and Skal is one of the best mid-range big-men in the game. To be able to pull a bigman out of the paint allowing Simmons/Smith to play 1 vs 1 inside would be huge.

[emplep7]

I would say Smith definitely played a role and would have helped in the playoffs due to his ridiculous efficiency. SJJ wouldnt have been able to exploit your front court as much if he were there IMO, but I could be wrong. I think getting more experienced players will help this team, but with DDS19 its going to be interesting to see what you look like with the transition.

I would say adding a defensive stopper would be huge and since I'm not a huge Dennis Smith fan, I would personally look to upgrade at PG.

[Marcos_Beck]

I would say adding a defensive stopper would be huge and since I'm not a huge Dennis Smith fan, I would personally look to upgrade at PG.

I believe I agree with this quote.
A defensive stopper to play around 2-3-4 would be great for the Heat.
Simmons in the new engine might be able to play PG possibly, that's at least worthy a look.
If not, grabbing a great PG is key for this team to take another step forward, specially with Dozier (who handled creative duties as SG/SF) is gone and Bird hasn't been able to keep his level of production.

[Dennis]

Great GM, not sure about the tactician aspect as the heat are always running zone - and that’s it. So dds19 will be the real test. I think your team is primed for the new engine though with so many great shooter and a Pf able to hit it from range in kyle.