The TV mounted on the wall inside the main room of Tyler Herro’s vacation suite on Turks and Caicos Island, roughly the size of a ping-pong table, was turned to the NBA Finals. But he couldn’t watch.
After Herro and the Miami Heat fell an inch short of playing in those finals themselves, he took his friends on a trip to unwind after a rigorous and ultimately disappointing season.
Herro’s boys put the games on, the Warriors and the Celtics, playing for all the marbles for which the Heat thought they should be playing. He’d leave the room and head to the balcony or the beach.
“It was frustrating the way it went,” Herro told The Athletic. “We felt like, you know, I wasn’t the only one banged up, and if we were healthy, obviously, we felt like we were the best team last year in the East. Playing against Golden State in the finals, against Steph and the dynasty they have, would have been a really cool experience.”
Herro was seated on the bench in the closing moments of Game 7 of the Eastern Conference finals at home against the Celtics when Jimmy Butler’s 3-point try, headed straight for the hoop, clanged off the middle of the rim and doomed Miami.
The NBA’s Sixth Man of the Year was a spectator because of a strained left groin that kept him out of Games 4-6 against Boston and for all but six minutes and 43 seconds of the series-deciding match. Herro had been hurt in Game 3, and he was barely heard from again.
“I couldn’t really push off, you know, laterally,” said Herro, who, along with the other members of the Heat quoted in this story, spoke to The Athletic by phone. “I couldn’t really explode for how I wanted to. And then it didn’t really make sense for me to come back not 100 percent.”
But then, he belabored the point about emotional pain and falling short of hopes and expectations.
“We were planning on playing the next series as well,” Herro said. “So we wanted to make sure I was healthy for that.”
The Heat, a proud franchise steeped in traditions of winning, rigorous on-court discipline and selfless defense, nearly pulled off another Finals trip by both doing it their way and tinkering along the edges.
They’d signed championship vets Kyle Lowry and P.J. Tucker, and bent some of the long-established in-house customs to make Lowry, Tucker and Butler feel more comfortable. They also relied on their impressive stable of homegrown talent: players such as Herro, who enjoyed a career year, and defensive stalwart Bam Adebayo, as well as what’s-his-names like Gabe Vincent and Max Strus, the latest of the Miami undrafted players who pushed the team through injuries and contributed to Miami’s deep playoff run.
Even Duncan Robinson, who fell out of the rotation during the playoffs after leading the Heat in 3s during the regular season, is another example of the program finding lesser known talent and turning those players into viable NBA threats. Victor Oladipo, one of the reasons Robinson lost playing time, formally resurrected his injury-plagued career through the Heat’s grace and patience. Miami bullied through the regular season, captured the No. 1 seed in the East, and then overpowered Atlanta and the 76ers in the playoffs.
By the end of the conference finals, though, Lowry’s gimpy hamstring was plaguing him. Butler, at times the best player in the East playoffs, fought a sore knee. Tucker was wounded. Herro was out. Through all of that, another inch (or less) of oomph from Butler on that last 3-point try in Game 7, and … who knows?
“It took me quite a few weeks before I could even get to the autopsy of our season,” coach Erik Spoelstra said, explaining the toll that Game 7 loss took on him.
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The Heat are not ones to navel gaze for too long. They doled out $170 million in new contracts to key rotational players that they can point to as proof their system still works. The Miami optimist would celebrate the four-year, $130 million bag Herro earned this week after being the 13th pick of the 2019 draft and the team’s second leading scorer last season.
Oladipo, a former All-Star who nearly lost his career because of multiple leg surgeries, has a two-year, $18 million deal in hand. Caleb Martin, who you are sure to hear more about this season, has three years and $20.4 million coming his way. Not bad for a 27-year-old who at this time last year was ecstatic to be on a two-way deal with the Heat – meaning he’d have to spend time in the NBA G League.
But the misses for the Heat continued after Butler’s near direct hit in Game 7. Tucker, hailed for eight months last season as emblematic of Heat culture, left via free agency for rival Philadelphia. Kevin Durant and Donovan Mitchell were on the trade market; Herro said their presence there, at minimum, held up extension negotiations with the Heat. But Durant is still in Brooklyn and Mitchell is on the Cavs, two of several Eastern teams vying for top billing who improved themselves on paper as the Heat did no such thing.
“That’s always a challenge, when you have a very good season, to be able to keep your roster intact,” Spoelstra said. “That’s the way that collective bargaining is set up. There is going to be some turnover. So all things considered, we feel absolutely thrilled that we’re able to bring back the overwhelming majority of our roster. And then, because of our guys’ work ethic, they also continue to reinvent themselves and come back different, hopefully better in terms of being able to help us impact winning.”
The Heat, sources said, first offered Herro an extension with $112 million in guaranteed money and escalators that could push the value of the contract to $128 million. The sides settled on a deal for $120 million guaranteed and a potential total of $130 million. There is a hint of irony in the Herro extension, in that the contract makes him virtually untradeable this season because of salary cap rules. His name had been mentioned in trade rumors in each of his three NBA offseasons.
“I wanted to be here and they wanted me here, so I mean, it was something we both wanted to get done,” Herro said. “We’re paying a lot of guys now. We got Kyle ($58 million left), Jimmy ($184 million), Bam ($135 million), Duncan ($75 million), so it was just getting the right number. I think it’s a good deal for both sides.”
Herro’s money may also be a signal that his role is about to change. While he has thrived as a reserve, backups do not typically receive nine-figure contracts.
The Heat’s starting unit is in flux and Spoelstra said he’s basically open to whatever emerges. Herro, Oladipo, Strus and even Robinson (the odd man out after the playoffs) are vying for a spot next to Lowry in the backcourt. Martin, the underdog of underdogs in the Heat’s rotation, would seem to be a candidate to fill Tucker’s shoes next to Butler and Adebayo, but that’s assuming the Heat choose to play a lineup of one big, two wings and two guards. Anything smaller (or bigger), and Martin is coming off the bench again.
Which, in the grand scheme, would be OK for Caleb. When twin brother Cody agreed to his four-year, $32 million deal with the Hornets in early July, the two were at Disneyland. Caleb was at his home, on the couch, when his own deal with the Heat was finalized later that week. But the moment didn’t feel any smaller for him.
“When you’re a guy in my position, and you’re not at the top of the totem pole, and you never know what the next year is gonna bring, year by year you’re trying to find a place in the league,” Martin said. “(The Heat contract) was obviously a big jump for my career, and security wise it was big for me. But I just think it is a realization of, like, all the work I put in. It wasn’t, you know, for nothing.”
Martin is 6-5 – undersized for a traditional four – but he plays bigger because of his leaping ability. He’s also faster than many who play the position. He jumped, worked and ran his way to 9.2 points and 3.8 boards last season, and shot north of 40 percent from 3-point range on nearly three attempts per game.
Tucker is fierce, fearless and vocal. He is also so savvy a defensive player that Spoelstra and his staff welcomed input from him on coverage ideas during the playoffs. If Martin succeeds him in the starting lineup, he won’t be required to be Tucker. Finding a replica is not how the Heat plan to replace him.
“Caleb’s versatility and his toughness, his competitiveness, is our language,” Spoelstra said. “We’re really grateful that we were able to have him in the program last year and develop him, and then all of a sudden he’s much more than that, he became such an essential part of our success.”
“We’re not going to replace Tuck by trying to find a facsimile for Tuck,” Spoelstra continued. “Tuck is one and only. He is super unique. It may be a couple of different players that bring something that really helps us.”
The Heat opened training camp at the Baha Mar Grand Hyatt Resort in The Bahamas, which just happened to be the same resort Lowry picked for a players’ getaway prior to the start of last year’s playoffs.
Just as it was when they went there for a little R&R in April, they arrived at Baha Mar as a team that will go primarily as far as Butler can take them. A healthy, refocused Lowry helps. Adebayo’s two-way versatility is a separating factor. They hope Herro’s bench dominance translates as a starter, if that’s how the chips fall.
Hurricane Ian didn’t make landfall in Nassau, but heavy rains from the brutal storm kept the Heat players from enjoying all of the amenities the Baha Mar had to offer. Still, there was enough pool time and team dinners to keep them appetized, and plenty of wine to further drown those bad memories from the Game 7 that won’t quite go away.
The Heat, basically, are the same team, trying to get to a new, better place.
“I think we got better too, even though we didn’t pick anyone up,” Herro said. “Last year, the experience of playing in that game, in that series, the whole playoff run, got us better. And I think bringing guys back who’ve improved over the summer is how we improved.”
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The TV mounted on the wall inside the main room of Tyler Herro’s vacation suite on Turks and Caicos Island, roughly the size of a ping-pong table, was turned to the NBA Finals. But he couldn’t watch.
After Herro and the Miami Heat fell an inch short of playing in those finals themselves, he took his friends on a trip to unwind after a rigorous and ultimately disappointing season.
Herro’s boys put the games on, the Warriors and the Celtics, playing for all the marbles for which the Heat thought they should be playing. He’d leave the room and head to the balcony or the beach.
“It was frustrating the way it went,” Herro told The Athletic. “We felt like, you know, I wasn’t the only one banged up, and if we were healthy, obviously, we felt like we were the best team last year in the East. Playing against Golden State in the finals, against Steph and the dynasty they have, would have been a really cool experience.”
Herro was seated on the bench in the closing moments of Game 7 of the Eastern Conference finals at home against the Celtics when Jimmy Butler’s 3-point try, headed straight for the hoop, clanged off the middle of the rim and doomed Miami.
The NBA’s Sixth Man of the Year was a spectator because of a strained left groin that kept him out of Games 4-6 against Boston and for all but six minutes and 43 seconds of the series-deciding match. Herro had been hurt in Game 3, and he was barely heard from again.
“I couldn’t really push off, you know, laterally,” said Herro, who, along with the other members of the Heat quoted in this story, spoke to The Athletic by phone. “I couldn’t really explode for how I wanted to. And then it didn’t really make sense for me to come back not 100 percent.”
But then, he belabored the point about emotional pain and falling short of hopes and expectations.
“We were planning on playing the next series as well,” Herro said. “So we wanted to make sure I was healthy for that.”
The Heat, a proud franchise steeped in traditions of winning, rigorous on-court discipline and selfless defense, nearly pulled off another Finals trip by both doing it their way and tinkering along the edges.
They’d signed championship vets Kyle Lowry and P.J. Tucker, and bent some of the long-established in-house customs to make Lowry, Tucker and Butler feel more comfortable. They also relied on their impressive stable of homegrown talent: players such as Herro, who enjoyed a career year, and defensive stalwart Bam Adebayo, as well as what’s-his-names like Gabe Vincent and Max Strus, the latest of the Miami undrafted players who pushed the team through injuries and contributed to Miami’s deep playoff run.
Even Duncan Robinson, who fell out of the rotation during the playoffs after leading the Heat in 3s during the regular season, is another example of the program finding lesser known talent and turning those players into viable NBA threats. Victor Oladipo, one of the reasons Robinson lost playing time, formally resurrected his injury-plagued career through the Heat’s grace and patience. Miami bullied through the regular season, captured the No. 1 seed in the East, and then overpowered Atlanta and the 76ers in the playoffs.
By the end of the conference finals, though, Lowry’s gimpy hamstring was plaguing him. Butler, at times the best player in the East playoffs, fought a sore knee. Tucker was wounded. Herro was out. Through all of that, another inch (or less) of oomph from Butler on that last 3-point try in Game 7, and … who knows?
“It took me quite a few weeks before I could even get to the autopsy of our season,” coach Erik Spoelstra said, explaining the toll that Game 7 loss took on him.
The Heat are not ones to navel gaze for too long. They doled out $170 million in new contracts to key rotational players that they can point to as proof their system still works. The Miami optimist would celebrate the four-year, $130 million bag Herro earned this week after being the 13th pick of the 2019 draft and the team’s second leading scorer last season.
Oladipo, a former All-Star who nearly lost his career because of multiple leg surgeries, has a two-year, $18 million deal in hand. Caleb Martin, who you are sure to hear more about this season, has three years and $20.4 million coming his way. Not bad for a 27-year-old who at this time last year was ecstatic to be on a two-way deal with the Heat – meaning he’d have to spend time in the NBA G League.
But the misses for the Heat continued after Butler’s near direct hit in Game 7. Tucker, hailed for eight months last season as emblematic of Heat culture, left via free agency for rival Philadelphia. Kevin Durant and Donovan Mitchell were on the trade market; Herro said their presence there, at minimum, held up extension negotiations with the Heat. But Durant is still in Brooklyn and Mitchell is on the Cavs, two of several Eastern teams vying for top billing who improved themselves on paper as the Heat did no such thing.
“That’s always a challenge, when you have a very good season, to be able to keep your roster intact,” Spoelstra said. “That’s the way that collective bargaining is set up. There is going to be some turnover. So all things considered, we feel absolutely thrilled that we’re able to bring back the overwhelming majority of our roster. And then, because of our guys’ work ethic, they also continue to reinvent themselves and come back different, hopefully better in terms of being able to help us impact winning.”
The Heat, sources said, first offered Herro an extension with $112 million in guaranteed money and escalators that could push the value of the contract to $128 million. The sides settled on a deal for $120 million guaranteed and a potential total of $130 million. There is a hint of irony in the Herro extension, in that the contract makes him virtually untradeable this season because of salary cap rules. His name had been mentioned in trade rumors in each of his three NBA offseasons.
“I wanted to be here and they wanted me here, so I mean, it was something we both wanted to get done,” Herro said. “We’re paying a lot of guys now. We got Kyle ($58 million left), Jimmy ($184 million), Bam ($135 million), Duncan ($75 million), so it was just getting the right number. I think it’s a good deal for both sides.”
Herro’s money may also be a signal that his role is about to change. While he has thrived as a reserve, backups do not typically receive nine-figure contracts.
The Heat’s starting unit is in flux and Spoelstra said he’s basically open to whatever emerges. Herro, Oladipo, Strus and even Robinson (the odd man out after the playoffs) are vying for a spot next to Lowry in the backcourt. Martin, the underdog of underdogs in the Heat’s rotation, would seem to be a candidate to fill Tucker’s shoes next to Butler and Adebayo, but that’s assuming the Heat choose to play a lineup of one big, two wings and two guards. Anything smaller (or bigger), and Martin is coming off the bench again.
Which, in the grand scheme, would be OK for Caleb. When twin brother Cody agreed to his four-year, $32 million deal with the Hornets in early July, the two were at Disneyland. Caleb was at his home, on the couch, when his own deal with the Heat was finalized later that week. But the moment didn’t feel any smaller for him.
“When you’re a guy in my position, and you’re not at the top of the totem pole, and you never know what the next year is gonna bring, year by year you’re trying to find a place in the league,” Martin said. “(The Heat contract) was obviously a big jump for my career, and security wise it was big for me. But I just think it is a realization of, like, all the work I put in. It wasn’t, you know, for nothing.”
Martin is 6-5 – undersized for a traditional four – but he plays bigger because of his leaping ability. He’s also faster than many who play the position. He jumped, worked and ran his way to 9.2 points and 3.8 boards last season, and shot north of 40 percent from 3-point range on nearly three attempts per game.
Tucker is fierce, fearless and vocal. He is also so savvy a defensive player that Spoelstra and his staff welcomed input from him on coverage ideas during the playoffs. If Martin succeeds him in the starting lineup, he won’t be required to be Tucker. Finding a replica is not how the Heat plan to replace him.
“Caleb’s versatility and his toughness, his competitiveness, is our language,” Spoelstra said. “We’re really grateful that we were able to have him in the program last year and develop him, and then all of a sudden he’s much more than that, he became such an essential part of our success.”
“We’re not going to replace Tuck by trying to find a facsimile for Tuck,” Spoelstra continued. “Tuck is one and only. He is super unique. It may be a couple of different players that bring something that really helps us.”
The Heat opened training camp at the Baha Mar Grand Hyatt Resort in The Bahamas, which just happened to be the same resort Lowry picked for a players’ getaway prior to the start of last year’s playoffs.
Just as it was when they went there for a little R&R in April, they arrived at Baha Mar as a team that will go primarily as far as Butler can take them. A healthy, refocused Lowry helps. Adebayo’s two-way versatility is a separating factor. They hope Herro’s bench dominance translates as a starter, if that’s how the chips fall.
Hurricane Ian didn’t make landfall in Nassau, but heavy rains from the brutal storm kept the Heat players from enjoying all of the amenities the Baha Mar had to offer. Still, there was enough pool time and team dinners to keep them appetized, and plenty of wine to further drown those bad memories from the Game 7 that won’t quite go away.
The Heat, basically, are the same team, trying to get to a new, better place.
“I think we got better too, even though we didn’t pick anyone up,” Herro said. “Last year, the experience of playing in that game, in that series, the whole playoff run, got us better. And I think bringing guys back who’ve improved over the summer is how we improved.”