There’s a sense that the Heat‘s offseason remains unfinished, with the Damian Lillard saga unresolved and Miami still looking like the overwhelming favorite to trade for the Trail Blazers star sooner or later.
However, speaking to ESPN’s Brian Windhorst on NBA Today on Thursday (YouTube link), head coach Erik Spoelstra suggested that he’d be happy to head into the 2023/24 season with his current roster, noting that the team “had most of our work done” by the time he reported to Team USA for the summer.
“We’re bringing back the majority of our players and that’s a luxury in this league,” Spoelstra said, per Anthony Chiang of The Miami Herald. “Things are so transient, things are moving fast. It seems like it’s moving faster now than even four, five, six years ago.
“We feel great about our group. We made some nice additions, we feel. Josh Richardson, getting another family member back into our program. Thomas Bryant, who we’ve been a big fan of. And [Jaime] Jaquez as our draft pick. We’re excited. He’s a guy you can plug and play right now. He’s a little bit older and he has a great deal of experience. So we’re adding those guys to our mix and bringing everybody back. Tyler [Herro] is healthy, Jimmy [Butler] and Bam [Adebayo], that’s a great core. So we’re excited about it.”
Spoelstra obviously can’t publicly discuss the possibility of adding Lillard and is unlikely to be directly involved in trade negotiations for the star guard, which will be handled by the front office. So the fact that he’s speaking positively about his current group is no surprise.
Still, Spoelstra is putting a positive spin on what has been an up-and-down offseason so far for the Heat. While Miami did well to get Richardson and Bryant on minimum-salary deals, the team lost two key rotation players – Gabe Vincent and Max Strus – in free agency. The Heat should be competitive again with no additional roster changes, but acquiring Lillard would almost certainly increase the club’s ceiling.
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