Ira Winderman: Giannis or reset, but enough of Heat middling middle ground

Ira Winderman, South Florida Sun-Sentinel on Feb 1, 2026

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MIAMI — Now. Or never.

Either the Miami Heat pull out all the stops, see if even that is enough, or else move on from what they have cultivated for nearly a decade, this group of hard-working, persistent, industrious players that, at best, had succeeded in Jimmy Butler’s shadows.

Add Giannis Antetokounmpo, and then having a group of hard-working, persistent, industrious players that succeed in the shadows is fine.

Because Antetokounmpo was, is and will continue to be a better player than Butler, whose coattails the Heat were able to ride to the 2020 and ’23 NBA Finals.

But at a certain point, “Hardest Working, Best Conditioned, Most Professional, Unselfish, Toughest, Meanest, Nastiest,” doesn’t mean much when you can’t escape the middle of the pack and in no way can speak of being a contender.

In fact, even before this latest round of Giannis conjecture began, and even amid the increasing trade swirl, when you listen to the Heat locker room, it’s more about escaping the play-in round for the first time in four years than any sort of championship contention.

The players, they know.

At the start of Pat Riley’s Heat stewardship in 1995, the question — with the Heat not having won anything since their 1988 inception — was whether something as mundane as a divisional banner ever would hang above the Heat’s court.

Now, more than three decades after Riley’s arrival, it’s as if there is a locker room hopeful of little more than at season’s end being able to bellow, “We’re No. 6!” (And therefore out of the play-in.)

The reality is that this is not only about the players, but rather something ownership and management have recognized, as well. It is why every effort, including only carrying 14 players on the standard roster this season, has been the approach, with little reason to enter the luxury tax, and therefore the repeater tax, with a roster marginal, middling and mundane.

With Giannis, that would change in a heartbeat. Perhaps not this season, as Giannis deals with an ongoing calf issue. But the outlook instantly would change to something other than, “We’re No. 6.”

Potentially not overnight, however, as with each of Riley’s major builds, from adding Antoine Walker, Jason Williams, James Posey and Gary Payton a season after Shaquille O’Neal arrived in 2005, to building out the Big Three of LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh with later championship components Shane Battier, Chris Anderson and Ray Allen.

The Arisons and Riley have been very good about going all in when it is winning time.

But without an addition of Giannis, winning time remains an abstract for this rendition of the Heat. Even when healthy and at their best, Bam Adebayo, Tyler Herro and Norman Powell aren’t leading men on a true championship contender.

To his credit, after bravado and bluster turned to reasoning and reality, Riley moved off his championship-or-bust mentality. And there have been good times with Adebayo and Herro. Ditto for some of the best moments this season with Powell.

But what last summer and then these ensuing results showed is this team was not a Powell away.

You can patch holes all you want, try to make it work in recent seasons with the likes of Kyle Lowry, Terry Rozier and Powell, continue to attempt to punch up in class.

As, all the while, the Cade Cunninghams, Victor Wembanyamas and likely soon the Cooper Flaggs pass you by. Each drafted after a step back by their respective teams.

The upcoming draft is so loaded that it is possible that soon the same could be said for the teams that land Darryn Peterson, AJ Dybantsa and Cameron Boozer.

Land the pedigree of a Giannis, and the kid stuff can be bypassed, as the Knicks did with their trade for Jalen Brunson and the Cavaliers with their deal for Donovan Mitchell.

But come up short for Giannis, quite possibly through no fault of their own, and a Heat meeting of the minds needs to follow.

Because at some point you have to move off and move on, as the Heat did at various stages with Tim Hardaway, Alonzo Mourning, Shaq, Dwyane Wade, Goran Dragic, Butler and other onetime cornerstones. Mourning and Wade eventually returned, but only after the Heat first moved on without.

Such moves can be particularly painful, but you either get a cornerstone as a foundation, or you turn those corners toward something bigger, better, more enduring.

So either get what already is in place some elite help, as in a Hail Mary for Giannis.

Or, yes, time to look in different places for different faces.

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