The Jimmy Butler championship window has closed for the Miami Heat
All offseason long, all we heard regarding the Miami Heat was that this team was going to take a step back this season (after losing PJ Tucker and not replacing him). To a certain extent, I fell into that narrative too. But right before the season, I thought, “maybe I was overreacting to the team losing one player.”
Then the first two games of the season happened. And it’s starting to look as if those prognosticators were right after all. Through the first few games of the season, the Heat looks like a team that is going to take a significant step back this season.
Their defense is suffering and they struggled on the offensive end at times, similar to the way they did in last year’s postseason. At least for now, this team has the look of one that needs to make a trade before the deadline.
This version of the Heat isn’t going to make much noise in the Eastern Conference this season.