The Heat entered the offseason with aspirations of re-adding some of the star power they’ve lost since the days of LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, and Chris Bosh. However, despite getting a meeting with Gordon Hayward, Miami failed to land its top target, and pivoted to Plan B: Re-signing its own players and adding a second-tier free agent in Kelly Olynyk.
Outside of the addition of Olynyk and a couple minor losses – Luke Babbitt and Willie Reed found new homes – the Heat’s roster looks very similar to last year’s version. With all the core pieces involved in last season’s 30-11 second-half run returning, and Olynyk and Justise Winslow set to join them, it’s reasonable to be enthusiastic about Miami’s chances of making some noise in the Eastern Conference.
Still, this also looks a lot like the team that had a 11-30 record in the first half of the 2016/17 campaign, which shouldn’t be overlooked. Goran Dragic, Hassan Whiteside, and Dion Waiters make up a solid core group of scorers for the Heat, but none of those players – or anyone else on the Miami roster – has made a single All-Star appearance, limiting the club’s upside.
Oddsmakers projecting the Heat’s 2017/18 win total lean slightly more toward the second-half version of the club than the first-half version. Offshore betting site Bovada has Miami’s over/under at 43.5 wins.
What do you think? Can the Heat build on last year’s scorching final stretch and reach 44+ wins in 2017/18, or was their offseason too quiet to expect a major step forward? Vote below and jump into the comment section to share your thoughts.
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Previous over/under voting results:
- Golden State Warriors: Over 67.5 (53.57%)
- Boston Celtics: Over 55.5 (63.5%)
- Houston Rockets: Over 55.5 (65.57%)
- San Antonio Spurs: Over 54.5 (67.74%)
- Cleveland Cavaliers: Over 53.5 (68.82%)
- Oklahoma City Thunder: Over 50.5 (71.77%)
- Minnesota Timberwolves: Over 48.5 (55.69%)
- Toronto Raptors: Over 48.5 (64.21%)
- Washington Wizards: Over 47.5 (71.29%)
- Milwaukee Bucks: Over 47.5 (63.88%)
- Denver Nuggets: Under 45.5 (50.44%)
- Los Angeles Clippers: Over 43.5 (60.7%)
Barring another year of ridiculous injuries heat will finish with a record between 44 and 52 wins and will finish between 2nd and 6th in the east.
Ahahahaha! You can’t seriously believe that. At BEST they’ll be average. In 13/14 they went to the Finals with Wade, Bosh and LeBron and won only 2 more games than you’re predicting . You’re delusional.
The low end of that is not delusional. I have them pegged for 45-46. Over 50 is a stretch.
Yeah with an injured team that didn’t care about regular season wins. If everything goes well they can win that many. Heat won 41 games last year with injured all year and a terrible start where they didn’t know how to play together. Now they do and I don’t see why they would go backwards from the momentum they had at the end of last year.
Yes that’s true they did have an extremely terrible start…..
Got to hand it to the team and coaching staff putting it together in the second half of the season.
Maybe This Year they’ll put two good halves together, but I’m thinking they’re going to put two bad halves together.
Aw…it’s so refreshing to hear people who are such “experts” voice their opinion with a potent snarky conviction. Thank you. Want to bring up 13/14 do you? Well then, the Eastern conference was a much different beast back then. In addition to Miami, you also had a solid Boston team (who even after losing Allen was better than this current version), Indiana (who was a powerhouse), and Chicago (who was leaps and bounds better than they are now). Atlanta was was about the same as they were last year. Nowadays, there’s Cleveland and Boston. That’s it. Weak as hell. There is no reason why this team can’t win 50 games in today’s nba (not 13/14). Get it? Keep the snarky a$$hole attitude though.
Miami will be between 40-42 and 46-36
Another year for that group to gel and the addition of Olynyk will help them be a bottom three playoff team in the East behind Toronto, Cleveland, Boston and Washington
The “Bovada” numbers have been spot-on for me and choosing over or under difficult. So… 44 wins when I would have said maybe 49… Oh well we’re all going too much over. Must be a good year coming up!
Their closer in tbe waning minutes of ballgames is…. Dion Waiters. Enough said. I’ll take the under and miss the playoffs.
You mean Kobe wade?
I’ll say 47, but I can see anything from 42-50. Hard to assess when the whole team was injured last year, and then they lost an important rotation piece off the bench, but replaced him with a different dynamic. Could be a race from 2 or 3 through 7, to be honest. I think Toronto drops a little. Still not too high on Washington’s overall depth. I like Milwaukee rising a bit, and I think Charlotte and Detroit could be right there/in that next group, followed by Indiana, Brooklyn, Philly…
I haven’t done my pre training camp look around the league yet b/c of the hurricane situations here, and some personal situations that have come into play from it. Off the top of my head, I could see it as Cavs, Celtics, Wizards, Heat, Bucks, Raptors, Hornets, Pistons, with those teams in the middle potentially being interchangeable. That likely won’t be what my full assessment will be, but I think the H eat are at least in the middle of it, obviously barring crazy injury situations similar to last season
Literally every team in the east has a huge question mark. Going to be an interesting season.