By Omar Abdallah
The first week of the 2019 NBA season is in the books and the Miami Heat are off to a 3-1 start, their best start to a season since the 2014-2015 season. With wins over the Memphis Grizzlies, Milwaukee Bucks, and Atlanta Hawks, and their only loss coming to the Minnesota Timberwolves 116-109 due to a 16-point explosion from Andrew Wiggins in the 4th quarter making four 3-pointers in the process.
It also should be noted that the Heat did not play their first 3 games with their newly acquired star forward Jimmy Butler as he was away from the team to welcome his newborn daughter, Rylee.
Before looking ahead to the games ahead, here are three fiery takeaways from the first week of the 2019-20 season.
There is a youth movement brewing in South Beach
One thing that really stands out from these first few games is the trust that Head Coach Erik Spoelstra has in his young players to not only play but to make instant contributions and produce at a high level night in and night out.
Two players that not only have caught the eyes of Heat fans but also NBA fans and media are rookie guards Kendrick Nunn and Tyler Herro.
Nunn, a 24-year-old point guard out of the University of Oakland, signed by the Heat on the last day of the regular season last year from the G-League affiliate of the Golden State Warriors, the Santa Cruz Warriors, where he averaged 19.3 ppg (points per game), shooting 47 percent from the field, earning a starting spot in the Heat lineup as a result.
Through his first four games, Nunn has played 31.3 minutes per game, averaging 21 ppg, while shooting 48.6 percent from the field and 44 percent from 3-point range, also displaying the ability to attack the lane and finish at the rim.
Tyler Herro, on the other hand, has been nothing short of outstanding since he first stepped on the court in a Miami Heat uniform. The 13th overall pick in the 2019 draft from the University of Kentucky was labeled mostly as a knockdown shooter from 3-point range and very good from the free-throw line has shown to be much more than that on the professional level.
After averaging 14.2 ppg during the preseason, Herro was placed in the starting lineup for the first three games of the regular season as Butler was unavailable and played well in those games.
However, it was the latest game on Tuesday against the Atlanta Hawks that he really shined. Coming off the bench for the first time this season, Herro went on to score 29 points, shooting 3-4 from 3-point range and going 12 for 16 from the free-throw line.
These two players have both early consideration for Rookie of the Year and will be called upon to produce on a nightly basis for a team that looks to establish themselves as one of the top contenders in the Eastern Conference.
Familiar names, different roles
With the new additions and subtractions of this team from last year to this year, Erik Spoelstra has been able to put players in different roles and the results have shown. The prime example of this has been Goran Dragic, who has transitioned from being the starting point guard to coming off the bench in a sixth-man role.
At 33 years old and coming off a lingering knee injury that limited him to only playing 36 games last year, Dragic has been able to provide an instant spark off of the bench, averaging 19.5 ppg while playing 29.3 minutes per game and still playing in late-game situations for this team because of his experience in this league and the trust that Spoelstra has in him.
Meyers Leonard, a center acquired from the Portland Trailblazers this offseason in a trade that sent Hassan Whiteside to the west coast has also gotten an increased role.
Primarily a reserve in Portland backing up players like Jusuf Nurkic and Enes Kanter, Leonard has been inserted into the starting lineup to play alongside Bam Adebayo as a big man with the ability to stretch the floor and draw shot-blockers away from the rim. Spoelstra has been mixing and matching different lineups so far and it looks like he has pulled all the right strings at the beginning of the season.
The Team Depth
This Miami Heat team looks to have the ability this year to mix and match players in different lineups and be able to leave them in the game for a stretch of the game without getting overwhelmed.
Having offensive spark plugs off the bench in Dragic or Tyler Herro, and possessing the ability to call upon players like Derrick Jones Jr. and Chris Silva, an undrafted rookie signed to a two-way contract, to provide instant energy and high-effort play. Couple these aforementioned factors with deep range threats such as Duncan Robinson and Kelly Olynyk off the bench also with the further development of players such as Justice Winslow and Bam Adebayo as key contributors for this team.
Not to mention the fact that James Johnson is finally traveling with the team to their game on Thursday, per Ira Winderman, a writer for the Sun-Sentinel who covers the Heat, and Dion Waiters still not being with the team at this very moment, as Spoelstra has said in a recent media session due to a conditioning issue.
If everybody is available for Spoelstra, the Heat have the potential to read as one of the deepest teams in the NBA.
We’ll see if these points, mentioned above, continue to manifest themselves, and should they do so, wall signs point to a rather exciting season if you are a Miami Heat fan.
