A somewhat consistent starter for the Miami Heat last season is no longer with the team following a recent move. Last week, the Heat dealt forward Haywood Highsmith to the Brooklyn Nets.

Miami got under the tax line by offloading Highsmith’s contract. The 28-year-old averaged 6.5 points, 3.4 rebounds and 1.5 assists per game across 74 contests (42 starts) with the Heat in the 2024-25 campaign.

Now that someone who started more than half of Miami’s games a season ago is a Net and out of the picture, it feels like a good time to try to gauge what the ideal starting lineup will be for the Heat in the coming campaign.

Let’s take a look at the five players who should be in the opening lineup for the Heat to start the 2025-26 season.

Point guard: Tyler Herro

It likely doesn’t surprise folks that Herro is on this list. He’s probably the Heat’s best offensive player at the moment, as he led the team in points per game (23.9) and assists per game (5.5) last season.

But it might be somewhat astonishing to see that he is slotted as Miami’s starting point guard opposed to its shooting guard. Herro has been a designated shooting guard for the entirety of his pro career, but he’s ready to make the positional change and run the Heat’s offense.

Herro has shown incremental growth as a playmaker over the years, as he’s averaged more assists per contest with every passing season in the league.

He has his defensive shortcomings, but his knacks for scoring and playmaking make up for his less-than-stellar play on the defensive side of the ball. The effectiveness of the Heat’s offensive attack in the coming season will largely hinge on Herro.

Shooting guard: Norman Powell

Powell and Herro would make for quite the dynamic starting backcourt on the offensive end. The former may not be as gifted as Herro when it comes to scoring the ball, but Powell still averaged 21.8 points per game while shooting an impressive 41.8 percent from 3-point range with the Los Angeles Clippers last season.

The 32-year-old seems ready to shoulder a heavy offensive burden with Miami from the get-go, as he was a top scoring option for a Clippers team that won 50 games in the 2024-25 campaign.

An interesting wrinkle to Powell is that he might have some potential on the defensive end that the Heat could tap into. One NBA scout claimed earlier this summer that Powell has two-way potential that he’s “gotten away from” and also noted that the guard was a stingy defender early on in his professional career.

Powell is easily Miami’s most notable offseason addition, and he could stake his claim as one of the team’s most vital players in his maiden season in South Beach.

Small forward: Andrew Wiggins

Wiggins is the first standout defensive player mentioned, as both Herro and Powell are mediocre on that end at best. Standing at 6-foot-7, the one-time All-Star is more than willing to get his hands dirty on the less glamorous end of the court and guard the other team’s best wing player.

He’s put together some spectacular defensive performances with the lights at their brightest. For example, he put Boston Celtics forward Jayson Tatum in clamps in the 2022 NBA Finals, as the star forward shot just 36.7 percent from the field in the best-of-seven series.

Wiggins is a tenacious and accomplished defensive player all the while being an effective complementary scoring threat as well. He’s averaged 18.5 points per game for his NBA career and scored 19.0 per contest in a small sample size with the Heat last season.

The former No. 1 overall pick’s impressive two-way skill set makes him maybe the best candidate to start for Miami at the small forward spot.

Power forward: Bam Adebayo

Adebayo is another obvious inclusion to this list. The last time Adebayo came off the pine for the Heat, he was in just his second season in the NBA.

Furthermore, he has firmly solidified himself as one of the premier defenders in the sport. In a modern NBA that values defensively versatility incredibly highly, Adebayo is one of few players who can legitimately defend all five positions on the court.

His body of work on the defensive end has helped him earn five All-Defensive nods, and he’s finished in the running for the Defensive Player of the Year on numerous occasions as well. Adebayo has ended up in the top five in voting for the award on five occasions.

He has long been the pillar behind Miami’s stingy defenses, and folks should expect Adebayo to continue to play that role for years to come.

Center: Kel’el Ware

There’s an argument to be made that with the lack of center depth the Heat have, it would be in the best interest of the team to have Ware come off the pine. However, Ware is too talented to be getting reserve minutes in light of how he played in the latter part of his rookie season.

Following the All-Star break, Ware averaged nearly a double-double along with 1.3 blocks per game, and he could be key to the Heat maximizing themselves on both ends of the floor in the coming season.

Offensively, he gives the Heat a lob threat in their starting lineup and highly effective interior scorer. Ware converted 71.9 percent of his looks at the rim as a first-year player.

Conversely, on the other end, he and Adebayo could form a devastatingly effective defensive duo. With all that length, strength and athleticism defending the painted area, points on the interior might be hard to come by for opposing teams.