How are the Heat doing so well? This is very upsetting to me, because I’ve spent the better part of two years ragging on them for signing a bunch of veteran role-players to huge contracts, putting a limit on the amount of in-house improvement they can hope to achieve as well as hamstringing their finances. They were doomed to be stuck in 8th-seed purgatory for the next few years. At least that’s what I thought, that’s what everyone else thought (except for Heat homers who can’t be trusted to be objective), how was everyone so wrong?
The answer: they somehow traded for Jimmy Butler (who is almost a superstar, doesn’t mean I don’t hate him for no reason though) and he looks like he cares and doesn’t want to actively sabotage the team.
The secondary answer: they’ve got some players on rookie deals who are outperforming their salaries quite significantly.
The tertiary answer: Dion Waiters is not currently around ruining everything. This could change, even though I don’t see him getting any playing time in the future he could still mess things up by sulking so hard he infects others with his sulkiness.
That secondary answer is the one we care about right now: Tyler Herro is providing extremely solid minutes, not to mention Kendrick Nunn and Duncan Robinson. When you can have so many minutes covered by players who are barely getting paid at all compared to some of the massive salaries found in the league, that adds quite a bit to the ceiling of a team. James Johnson out of shape? Doesn’t matter! Dion Waiters having a panic attack on the team plane due to unexpectedly strong edibles? Who cares! Kelly Olynyk being literally the softest player ever with Meyers Leonard close behind? It’s all good, when you’ve got a sweet-shooting stud like Herro on your team.