A .500 Miami Heat roster certainly won’t satisfy Pat Riley

While a .500 record isn’t a catastrophe, history shows that Miami Heat team president Pat Riley isn’t competing for second place.

The summer of 2017 was seen as a period of consolidation for the Miami Heat.

After rampaging through the league with a 30-11 record to finish the season, team president Pat Riley was keen for the nucleus of the team to remain intact.

Key contributors James Johnson and Dion Waiters, each having made various stops around the league prior to their arrival, were rewarded for their debut seasons with four-year contracts. Additionally, the Heat signed free agent Kelly Olynyk to a four-year deal. Then later in the offseason, swingman Josh Richardson was extended for another four seasons despite an underwhelming second season in the league due to various injuries.

However, a 14-14 record to commence the season has cast a great doubt over many of the moves made this past summer.

On a recent edition of The Dan Le Batard Show, Le Batard, a staple in the Miami sports scene for the past two decades, noted the following regarding the Heat’s fortunes moving forward:

"“It’s not just about the arbitrary measurement of getting to the playoffs as an eighth seed and losing in the first round. Pat Riley’s all about championships, he’s at the end of his career. We’re not doing success is getting in as the seven (seed) in the East….Pat Riley’s not going to live there, so it’s a legitimate conversation to have if they’re anywhere in that realm, now that the contracts can be traded, that Pat Riley’s not going to live in a space where he’s going to be ok at the end of his career with seven seeds.“The problem with where the Heat are is they have built around a series of Plan B’s….They had to keep what they had, they had to keep the players so you don’t lose the fans….So they settled with four-year deals, movable contracts, tied them all together so…..he could ship them in packages or whatever.”"

With the magical date of Dec. 15 having now passed, Riley and the front office are now afforded the ability to move the aforementioned deals signed this summer (aside from Richardson, who can’t be moved until the offseason.)

So while the levels of optimism entering the season were relatively high, reality has not quite met the level of expectation. As Le Batard pointed out:

"“None of us have ever seen a .500 team like that last year….and that was enough to even fool Pat Riley. Because Pat Riley was telling you in those press conferences, he was saying, ‘Let’s see what it was, let’s put them together and see if it was real or not.'”"

Waiters condundrum

Moving forward, the Heat need to ascertain which players can be shipped away, and also which potential players they will target. One player Le Batard is confident the Heat won’t be able to find a new home for is Waiters.

After a career-year last season, Waiters’ offseason preparation was hampered due to an ankle injury that he decided not to have surgically prepared. Thus, a combination of landing his long-awaited payday and a relative lack of conditioning has seen Waiters shooting just 39.8 percent from the field and 30.8 percent from 3-point range.

In addition to his comments on Riley, Le Batard also discussed the situation the Heat face relating to Waiters’ contract:

"“I cannot begin to tell you how much of an offense and affront this is to people like [Eric] Spoelstra and Pat Riley, the idea that they can’t reach someone about basic conditioning…. if they don’t start winning, and he doesn’t start playing well, he specifically is going to be a problem. Because he’s saying ‘I’m not going to no bench’ and he signed that contract and said “my team now – I saw what happened when you guys didn’t have me last year at the end of the year – my team now.’“You’re heading towards a big problem, and the problem is giving big contracts to knuckleheads. They have contracts with value, that ain’t (Waiters) one of them….I can’t believe Miami was fooled.”"

These are very strong statements, but considering the drastic drop-off in production, they are more than justified. Another Miami identity, ESPN’s Jorge Sedano, also chimed in recently for his take on the situation via Twitter:

Movable pieces

Aside from Richardson, virtually all other pieces on the Heat roster will be up for grabs and made available. That includes Goran Dragic, Hassan Whiteside — everyone.

Now 28 games in, the Heat rank 23rd in offensive rating (points per 100 possessions) at 102.5, and 13th in defensive rating (points allowed per 100 possessions) at 104.5. In other words, the team is in no-man’s land.

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A pair of players likely to attract interest from around the league are the bench duo of Wayne Ellington and Tyler Johnson. Over the past seven games, Ellington has averaged 12.9 points per game on 48.1 percent shooting from long distance, while Johnson has posted 16.7 points per game on an incredible 62.5 percent clip from 3-point range.

Furthermore, this duo have been a real barometer for the success of the Heat through 28 games. In their 14 wins, the duo of Ellington and Johnson have converted at a combined 48.1 percent clip from long range, but at just a 33.1 percent clip during their 14 losses.

Attached to higher profile players, this duo will certainly have some currency on the trade market.

Whichever path Riley decides to follow in the ensuing months leading up to the trade deadline, it’s unlikely he’s going to bow out without making some serious noise.

Next: 2017-18 Week 9 NBA Power Rankings

So while the Heat’s current record isn’t all doom and gloom, this isn’t the angle taken from the man they refer to as “The Godfather.”