Ira Winderman: Does Trae Young offer Heat a cautionary tale for Tyler Herro?

Ira Winderman, South Florida Sun-Sentinel on Jan 4, 2026

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MIAMI — It is an adage as old as the NBA, that talent finds a way. The question this season is whether talent comfortably can find a way back — especially when that talent no longer stands as a sole source of success.

With the Atlanta Hawks, the attempts to reintegrate Trae Young back into the mix have been uneven, to say the least.

Next up, in a similar situation, is the question of what might or might not happen with the Heat’s Tyler Herro.

With Young, it was 22 games out with a sprained knee, a brief return, and then more time out with a quad contusion.

With Herro, it was sidelined for the season’s first 17 games due to ankle surgery, a six-game return, and then the toe contusion that has had him out since early December.

In the case of the Hawks, success this season has come with Jalen Johnson as leading man.

With the Heat, it has been with Norman Powell as leading scorer.

At least with Herro’s previous return, there was a 3-3 record.

At the turn of the year, the Hawks were 0-5 with Young in the lineup since his mid-December return, before going out again — with the Young-less Hawks dismantling the Minnesota Timberwolves, 126-102, on New Year’s Eve and then defeating the New York Knicks without Young on Friday night.

With a Herro return appearing imminent, Hawks coach Quin Snyder was asked before the Heat’s recent victory in Atlanta over Young and the Hawks about reintegrating a proven scorer into a mix that had changed direction amid such an absence.

He made clear in his response he could not speak, without being close enough to the situation, for the Heat or for Herro.

But he did speak to how his team has dealt with Young being in and out of the lineup.

“A process, that’s what it is,” Snyder said. “And it’s a long runway. Everybody is not going to be acclimated to one another like immediately.”

Snyder snapped his fingers while offering that answer, as if to indicate there are no instant answers in such a process.

“It’s minor adjustments for a lot of guys,” Snyder said. “And there’s a critical mass of things that you’re going through. You just keep working at it.”

On one hand, a team trying to make it work with the reintroduction of an All-Star talent.

On the other, a team that had headed in a different, positive direction in the interim.

“And I think players feel that,” Snyder said of returning to Plan A after an extended period finding a degree of success with Plan B. “And it usually takes time to figure those things out. It’s not formulaic.”

Beyond the absences, there is another common Young-Herro thread, in each case their teams bypassing extension windows in favor of further scrutiny.

In each case, it pushed each closer to free agency.

For Young, free agency could come as soon as this summer, otherwise with a $48.9 million player option for next season.

For Herro, there will be another extension window this summer, with his contract expiring after a $33 million salary in 2026-27.

So extensions bypassed.

Then injuries endured.

Then a degree of success in the interim.

For both Young and Herro, still time enough to remind of the best of times.

With the Hawks, it is not trending well with Young present.

Next up is such judgment for the Heat with Herro.

When it comes to the contract, Heat management already has made its statement by not moving forward with an extension during that October window.

When it comes to the locker room, Heat captain Bam Adebayo said there only will be an embrace.

“I mean, knowing that we’re better with him, I mean, that’s always a plus, right?” Adebayo said this past week. “But it’s always an adjustment.”

One that Adebayo appreciates has to be carefully managed by both teammates and coach Erik Spoelstra.

“Guys’ minutes get mixed up, substitutions have to be different,” Adebayo said. “So from that standpoint, that’s the difficult part, getting the substitutions right, because you want everybody to keep playing.

“But obviously somebody has to lose minutes. And that’s when we have to be men about it, honestly. That’s when Spo has to have those tough conversations with the guys that might get their minutes cut or whatever the case may be.”