It hasn’t been a particularly eventful offseason for the Miami Heat, who swung a nice trade for wing Norman Powell but still figure to be several tiers below legitimate contention in the Eastern Conference. The Heat have been mired in NBA purgatory for a couple of years now, not bad enough to tank but not good enough to compete, and it’s unclear how that will change anytime soon.This offseason, some fans wanted to see the team move on from wing Andrew Wiggins, who the Heat acquired as part of the Jimmy Butler deal at last year’s trade deadline.
Recently, ClutchPoints’ Brett Siegel reported that “this offseason, the Miami Heat were willing to discuss trade scenarios involving Andrew Wiggins, and several teams expressed interest in the former NBA champion and All-Star wing, sources said. The Milwaukee Bucks, league sources said, were one of the teams to inquire about Wiggins.”
However, nothing ever ended up materializing on the Wiggins front, due to the fact that the Heat were only “willing to deal Wiggins if they received an instant impact player, along with an upcoming first-round pick before 2028,” per Siegel.
At this point, it’s unclear if Wiggins would be worth a first-round pick in and of itself, let alone an instant impact player on top of that.
A strange Heat team
While there’s no doubting Pat Riley’s place as a legendary figure in NBA history, he hasn’t exactly been doing his legacy a favor with the way that he’s handled these last couple of seasons in Miami.
In 2023, the Heat shockingly made the NBA Finals, led by Jimmy Butler and a Motley crew of role players who collectively picked the same two months to have the best stretches of their careers.
Since then, Miami has not made any real moves to try to get over the championship hump, and have instead watched their relationship with Butler disintegrate.
While Tyler Herro and Bam Adebayo are nice third or fourth options on contending teams, it’s unclear at this juncture how the Heat plan to get legitimate star talent back in their locker room, as the allure of “Heat Culture” appears to have now evaporated.
