At some point, the Miami Heat became as much of a lifestyle brand as a basketball team; more notable than their on-court performance is the infrastructure of rah-rah Crossfit-y cultishness that undergirds it. Besides star players like Dwyane Wade or Armani-suited power-players like Pat Riley, the defining feature of the Heat has been an all-encompassing grindset, one where sweatiness is next to godliness. This is what acolytes call Heat Culture, the belief that success can be manifested through a maniacal devotion to pre-dawn shooting drills and top-tier aerobic capacity.
Last season, though, Miami’s offense went adrift, straying from the intricate, fluid offense that propelled them to the Finals in the bubble. Even during that prolonged stretch where Jimmy Butler decided he never wanted to leave Disney World and Tyler Herro mutated into a sneering hellion, the Heat never had the individual talent to win simply; instead, their offense is dependent on the ability to sustain symbiosis between their diffuse parts.
When it works, Heat's multi-pronged attack places immense mental and physical strain on all five defenders—no one team has the personnel to withstand Butler’s brutish, gnarly scoring while also limiting Bam Adebayo’s playmaking while also sticking with Duncan Robinson and Tyler Herro as they careen around screens. Now, after sign-and-trading for Kyle Lowry, the Heat have added some much-needed pick-and-roll juice.
But for most of last season, the Heat’s offense was halting and disordered, stumbling to a 111.2 offensive rating that ranked 18th in the NBA. In comparison to their bubbled dynamism, the Heat's offense last year resembled the hoops version of when Netflix glitches and the audio lags behind the video.
And after a hectic 13 months that included parts of two NBA seasons, a Finals appearance and a first-round flameout, Miami doubled down on its Miami-ness over the off-season. Whereas other teams lust after youth and athletic vigor, the Heat opted for players who are attuned with the franchise’s Spartan mentality; their two marquee offseason acquisitions, Kyle Lowry and PJ Tucker, are intense, sturdy veterans who possess all the panache of a station wagon. Like the rest of the Heat, the pair are both practitioners of dad-strength basketball, a style borne from years of lived experience and kettlebell curls. As a whole, the Heat may not be particularly strong or fast or tall or sharp-shooting, but they're so smart and their chemistry comes so naturally that they're an almost-contender all the same.