Five months after placing in the top-5, the Miami Heat fell outside of the top-10 in CBS Sports’ latest front office rankings. (Mandatory Credit: Wilfredo Lee/AP Photo)
It’s been a forgettable three years for the Miami Heat, who have posted a combined 127-119 (.516) record with three play-in bids over that span.
They have made the playoffs in each of those seasons, including becoming the first team in NBA History to win a pair of play-in games on the road last spring. But there’s no sugarcoating the truth: The Heat, an organization steadfast on either “winning or misery,” have been mediocre for the last three years with plenty of architectural missteps along the way.
That didn’t stop CBS Sports from ranking the Heat’s front office as the fourth-best in the NBA in February. There’s no question that they have produced one of the league’s most successful organizations since their inception in 1988. However, if we zoom into the last few seasons, they have not been good relative to their counterparts, and CBS Sports’ new ranking reflects that.
CBS Sports drops Miami Heat outside top-10 in latest front office rankings:
Here an excerpt from what CBS Sports’ Sam Quinn wrote Monday:
“Miami’s top-four ranking in February was based on track record. With the benefit of hindsight, that was probably too high,” CBS Sports’ Sam Quinn wrote. “While Miami has been among the NBA’s smartest teams for three decades now, the last few years have raised serious questions.
“Pat Riley very publicly mishandled the Jimmy Butler situation, challenging him through the media rather than either extending or trading him. Sure enough, that led to a mess of a season and an underwhelming trade return that likely could have been avoided if he’d just acted more decisively last summer. The recent draft picks have been a somewhat mixed bag, though Kel’El Ware looks like a keeper. The Terry Rozier trade has been an outright disaster, and it fundamentally misunderstood where the Heat were as a team.
“They’ve been a play-in team three years in a row now. They were not a below-average starting point guard away from winning anything, but that lost first-round pick has made it harder for them to chart a real course in the aftermath.
“That’s what’s most concerning here. The overall vision here feels outdated. The Heat appear far too comfortable being mediocre. … This is a roughly .500 team. It has limited long-term upside. They’re just waiting for another star to choose them. But the NBA doesn’t really work that way anymore. … Right now, they’re just sort of stuck. There doesn’t appear to be much of a long-term plan beyond waiting for someone to pick them.”
“The days of Pat Riley dropping his rings on the table and landing whoever he wants appear to be over. The league is changing. It’s not clear that the Heat are changing with it.”
— @CBSSports https://t.co/9WZ29I0iaR
— Hot Hot Hoops (@hothothoops) July 22, 2025
While I have criticized the Heat’s (mis)management of assets over the last several seasons, they do deserve credit for the Norman Powell trade (for now…) and acquiring Davion Mitchell for PJ Tucker and a second-round pick at the deadline. They also deserve credit for drafting Tyler Herro, Nikola Jovic, Kel’el Ware and, most recently, Kasparas Jakucionis (among others) where they did, in addition to finding true diamonds in the rough — even though that has dissipated in recent years.
Conversely, the Heat have squandered all of their own second-round picks through 2031 to get off of bad contracts, which isn’t good. They have also made questionable extension offers and have waited too long to cash in on “sell-high(ish)” level players post-contention. Miami also, to Quinn’s point, has mismanaged the Jimmy Butler situation, which I was admittedly wrong about.
We’ll see what they do with their impending cap space; cap space isn’t used to bring in free agents, it can also be used to take on contracts (with draft capital … potentially) before you re-sign your own players.
Quinn ranked the Heat ahead of the Golden State Warriors, Orlando Magic, Atlanta Hawks and Detroit Pistons, among others.
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