After a “quiet” offseason, the Miami Heat are going to enter the 2025-26 campaign with mostly the same roster that got swept by Cleveland to end the 2024-25 season. On paper, the ceiling for the Heat isn’t very high, and the odds of winning a title are next to none.

But success in 2025-26 for Miami would be having its young group of talent take a step forward and be a squad that wins because of the sum of its parts.

And given the state of the Eastern Conference, opportunity awaits Miami.

Miami can make noise in 2025-26

The Christmas Day schedule for the NBA was revealing in the sense that only New York and Cleveland are going to get featured from the Eastern Conference.

The fact that Boston, Indiana, and Milwaukee couldn’t get a slot just shows how up for grabs things are in the East this year.

All three of those squads had stars go down with significant injuries to end 2024-25, and all three are expected to take a step backward this upcoming season.

So while Miami may not have great NBA title odds, projected to finish in the bottom half of the Eastern Conference and the bottom-third of the league, there are going to be opportunities to pick up wins early in the season.

Orlando is expected to take a big role in the East this season. They swung for the fences for Desmond Bane, who is a nice player but not the type to get a team over the hump.

Even the upstart Atlanta Hawks, who the Heat beat in the play-in game, only made a move for Nickeil Alexander-Walker and often-injured Kristaps Porzingis.

In reality, the only teams that feel like they have a definitive gap compared to the Heat in the East are Cleveland, New York, and Detroit.

That sounds crazy, given how bad Miami looked at times down the stretch after the Jimmy Butler trade, but there are enough pieces floating around where if the Heat can get Kel’el Ware and Bam Adebayo to pair well, combined with unlocking Tyler Herro in a “step up” year, don’t act shocked if Miami is able to keep contact with the pack in the East in 2025-26.