There was a point two seasons ago when Pat Riley cut to the chase with Tyler Herro.
“He’s been fragile a little bit,” the Heat president said of the team’s star guard.
That was following the 2023-24 season, when Herro appeared in only 42 games.
This past season, Herro responded by playing 77 of the 82.
Challenge accepted.
No, not necessarily enough to take the sting off a Heat season that finished at a disappointing 37-45 and was followed by the worst playoff-series blowout loss in NBA history, but, still, a step forward by one of the Heat’s leading men.
And now … a step back, with the Heat on Friday announcing that Herro underwent surgery to alleviate posterior impingement syndrome in his left ankle, “expected to miss around eight weeks.”
As in, at least the first 14 games of the regular season.
As in, here we go again?
When discussing the injury-marred start of Herro’s career during his 2024 postseason wrap-up, Riley also urged perspective with Herro’s absences, including missing all but the opening minutes of the Heat’s playoff run to the 2023 NBA Finals, when a hustle dive for a loose ball led to a broken hand,
“His major injuries are real,” Riley said. “We hope to get through a season where he’s playing in that 72- to 82-game basis. Maybe one day he will surprise us and play every game. I remember (former Riley Lakers forward) James Worthy went through some injuries in his first and second year. It happens sometimes.”
Only for Herro, it has now happened a lot.
Prior to last season, when the playing total would have been 78 of the 82 games if not held out for the Heat’s meaningless regular-season finale, Herro had not appeared in more than 67 games over his first six seasons since being drafted at No. 13 in 2019 out of Kentucky.
This time, it will be two months, including the season’s first month. Previously, among the extended absences, it had been:
2023-24: An 18-game absence early in the season with a sprained right knee; a 20-game absence later in the season with what mostly was listed as tendinitis in his right foot; five more games missed with a lower-back contusion; three missed in concussion protocol.
2022-23: Eight early-season games missed with a sprained left ankle; three missed with soreness in his left Achilles; and then that playoff injury in the postseason opener against the Milwaukee Bucks, when 19 minutes in there was the dive for a loose ball and the surgery on his left hand that followed.
2021-22: Early in the season, three games were missed with an injured right quadriceps; later, four games in a five-game stretch were missed with a sore right knee; and then in the Heat’s loss to the Boston Celtics in the Eastern Conference finals, three games were missed with a strained left groin, limited to only seven minutes in Game 7 of that series by the ailment.
2020-21: Seven games missed in January due to neck spasms; three games later missed due to a hip contusion; four games missed after that with a knee contusion; and then three more games missed with a sore right foot.
2019-20: A 15-game absence just before the pandemic break in the schedule due to a sore right ankle.
Each time, Herro vowed perseverance, pushing all the way back last season to his first All-Star appearance.
everything happens for a reason 🙏🏻❤️
— Tyler Herro (@raf_tyler) September 20, 2025
In the wake of this latest setback, which came amid training for the coming season, Herro posted on Instagram from his post-surgical bed, “Imma tear the league back down once I get off this weak ass bed.”
The timing of the latest setback comes with Herro and the Heat facing an Oct. 1-20 window for an extension, one that would max out at $150 million over three seasons.
Asked about that extension at the end of last season, Riley demurred, “Tyler definitely is deserving of the thought of an extension. But are we going to do it? We haven’t committed to it, but we’re going to discuss it and I’ve already talked to him about it. He’s cool.”
And now this latest setback, which either can be taken as the cost of preparation for another grueling season of having to carry the offense, or part of a concerning pattern of extended absences.
In questioning Herro’s lack of action in 2023-24, Riley noted, “There isn’t anyone who works harder at his game. He puts the time in. He puts the time in the weight room.”
In response to that comment, on the way to those 77 games played last season, Herro said, “I’m aware of what’s going on … I took his words, obviously, into consideration and used it as motivation as I always do.”
And started trending in the requested way.
And now, another blip . . . or something more telling and again unsettling?
“Everything happens for a reason,” Herro posted on X.
Originally Published: September 21, 2025 at 12:12 PM EDT