Heat Notes: Play-In Tournament, Ware, Larsson, Herro, Powell

The Heat’s frustrating season, which will end with a fourth straight trip to the play-in tournament, is a result of being too patient with the current roster, Barry Jackson of The Miami Herald writes in a subscriber-only piece. Big changes were expected after Miami was embarrassed by Cleveland in the first round of last year’s playoffs, but the core of the team remained intact and produced another mediocre campaign.

There are three traditional ways to improve in the NBA – tanking for a high draft pick, trading players at the peak of their value for future assets and aggressively pursuing unhappy stars – and Jackson argues that Heat management hasn’t pursued any of those options.

Team president Pat Riley is strongly opposed to tanking and ownership holds the same stance, so the first option is out. Jackson states that Bam Adebayo, who would be the organization’s top trade asset, remains “untouchable,” while Tyler Herro said last year that the front office told him he would only be moved for a top-75 all-time player. Jackson adds that Herro’s trade value has diminished as teams have become reluctant to part with assets for one-dimensional scorers. He also questions the commitment to Andrew Wiggins when the Lakers and other teams expressed interest last summer.

In addition, Jackson notes that Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving, Brandon Ingram and Derrick White have all been moved over the past three years at a cost of no more than one first-round pick. The Trae Young deal didn’t involve any first-rounders, and Ja Morant could have been obtained at a bargain price at the deadline.

Jackson also points out that Riley sounded confident about the Heat’s “draft-pick, young-player, favorable-contract situation” when he spoke to reporters last May, but since then the team gave a four-year, $62MM extension to Nikola Jovic that now looks like a mistake.

There’s more from Miami:

• Friday’s win over Washington preserves the Heat’s chances to earn home-court advantage for the 9 vs. 10 game if things break their way on the final day of the season, per Anthony Chiang of The Miami Herald. They would move into ninth place if they can win a home game against Atlanta and the Hornets lose at New York. No matter the outcome, coach Eric Spoelstra isn’t happy that his team tumbled into play-in territory again by going 4-10 in its last 14 games. “It’s harrowing,” he said. “We say it every year that we’ve been in there, you don’t want to be in there. But that’s sometimes the path you have to take.”
• Kel’el Ware replaced Pelle Larsson in the starting lineup on Friday and Spoelstra indicated that the move might be permanent, Chiang adds. “Kel’el is really important to what we’re trying to do,” Spoelstra said. “We all know about his upside. This can get him next to Bam, stabilize him a little bit to start the game. And then it gives us a little bit of flexibility as the game moves on. Sometimes in the last couple of weeks, some of the lineups with Bam have been really good. And then we end up going longer with that, and it just ends up being longer for Kel’el sitting on the bench. And he’s a key player for us, so this allows him to get some minutes right out of the gate.”
• Herro and Norman Powell both missed the Washington game with minor injuries, but they could return on Sunday, according to Ira Winderman of The Sun-Sentinel (Twitter link). “Hopefully it’s just for today,” Spoelstra said. “They’re both dealing with something that they just could not loosen up and get ready for tonight.”