Miami Heat: Grading The Offseason

Assuming Tristan Thompson is finally able to agree to terms, the Cleveland Cavaliers will be the undisputed favorites to come out of the Eastern Conference in 2015-16. But out of all the Eastern teams that might make life difficult for LeBron James and company en route to the NBA Finals, none had a better offseason than Pat Riley and the Miami Heat.

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Heading into the summer, Miami had plenty of items on their checklist. Dwyane Wade was an unrestricted free agent and Goran Dragic opted out of the final year of his contract — as expected — to become an unrestricted free agent as well. Luol Deng had a player option, the Heat had the 10th pick in the draft and the team’s bench needed bolstering.

But for the NBA’s Tywin Lannister, all those concerns eventually amounted to nothing more than check, check, check and check.

How did Riley pull it off? How did the Heat go from lottery team to serious Eastern contender over the course of a couple of months? Here’s a look at Miami’s summer with complete offseason grades.

Next: The Draft