Heat have yet to unveil their most top heavy starting lineup

With a fully healthy Heat team on the horizon, could Erik Spoelstra finally roll out a new game-changing starting unit for a playoff push?
(Photo via Miami Heat/X)

After an up and down first 50+ games for the Miami Heat this season, they have still yet to figure out the perfect rotation.

It doesn’t help that the team’s 2024 All-Star in Tyler Herro has only played in 11 games due to an assortment of different injuries. However, the Heat could finally be getting their talented combo guard back very soon. Miami Herald’s Anthony Chiang recently iterated that the “expectation” is that Herro will be back in practice starting Thursday, with a return to game action within the next coming days.

Herro has missed the team’s last 15 matchups, sidelined with a rib injury. Overall, he’s been out for 45 out of the team’s possible 56 games— on route to appear in by far a career low amount of games in what has already been an injury riddled seven-year career in Miami.

Nagging minor injuries have also struck the Heat’s newest All-Star Norman Powell recently. Key glue guys Pelle Larsson has been in and out, along with Davion Mitchell. But a fully healthy squad could finally come to fruition soon, just in time for a post-All-Star break playoff push.

Coach Erik Spoelstra still sees the vision of a high ceiling with a healthy Heat team. “Offensively, I think when we get our guys back, I think we’re going to be a really dangerous offensive team,” Spoelstra recently told the media. “We can be fourth in the league in scoring with large parts of our rosters on the sideline. Just wait until we get our guys back into the fold.”

Should the Miami Heat make a drastic starting lineup change?

Considering all the inconsistencies and injuries, Miami has had over 20 different starting lineups this season. However, Spoelstra has yet to unveil arguably the best one— and one that was projected to be that first unit heading into this 2025-26 campaign:

Herro, Powell, Andrew Wiggins, Bam Adebayo and Kel’el Ware.

Without considering the fit, this is hypothetically the Heat’s best five players all in one lineup.

Mitchell’s early season emergence as the starting point guard made it difficult to remove him from so. But he has since cooled off. Ware, fresh off a rising stars game, recently earned his way back with the starters before the All-Star break came. And Spoelstra has been impressed with his impact as of late as one of the biggest ceiling raisers on the roster alongside Adebayo in the frontcourt.

Unless Spoelstra’s plan is to bring Herro off the bench moving forward, it leaves either Mitchell or Ware as the odd man out. Mitchell is the type of role player that can provide two-way value whether he’s starting or coming off the bench. The same can’t be said for Ware, who has had a minimal impact in games that he has appeared in a reserve role.

Despite a lack of reliable backcourt defense in Mitchell’s absence between Herro and Powell, there’s still an elite defensive frontcourt trio in Wiggins, Adebayo and Ware there to back them up.

Miami is still struggling to be a .500 team. They have nothing to lose in attempting to make any significant rotation changes. Why not put a formula of your top-five talents on the court at the same time and see where it goes?

Heat have yet to unveil their most top heavy starting lineup

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