Miami Heat summer league’s over: What’s next ?

With the summer just wrapping up, the defending summer league champs end their time in Vegas with a disappointing 2-3 record. To many the overall record might not seem so awful, but to avid watchers of the Miami Heat, the consensus throughout watchers was that this was the one of the worst constructed summer Heat teams we have seen. So the next question has to be, what next?

-KASPARAS JAKUCIONIS

With the Heat in an in-between contending / rebuilding state, a huge priority in this Miami Heat roster, is the young guys. The first player to dissect is arguably the biggest slider in the draft, 20th pick in this year’s draft Kasparas Jakucionis. KJ averaged 9.5 points, 2.8, 2.5, and 3.7 turnovers per game while shooting 31.8% from the field and 21.4% from beyond the arc in California — before playing better in Las Vegas, including one strong game that included 19 first half points. Kasparas, at Illinois, had an issue with turnovers, and in six games he had a staggering 22 turnovers, so the issue is still relevant coming into the league. A trip to Sioux Falls seems like the most realistic resolution for the rook next year, but his potential is there.

-YEAR 2 ROOKS

With an amazing summer league from Pelle Larsson, Probably the biggest story line this summer was, Kel’el Ware. reports came out moment after the Kevin Durant trade, stating that the Heat kept Ware out of trade talks for Durant due to there belief of the upside and potential ware has, what we saw summer league was far from that, it’s not a discussion Were has potential to be great, but a severe underlying issue Ware has shown is his inconsistent motor. At times Ware seemed disengaged. The look became so bad that Spoelstra called out Ware’s professionalism in between games, which seemed to bring him back to Earth, and Ware’s effort improved over the final two games he played.

-So What’s Next?

The simple truth is, the Miami Heat need to find their footing. After the Jimmy Butler saga to the embarrassing way we ended our playoffs last year, to find a direction is more crucial than ever. With the addition of Norman Powell earlier this summer and the hopefulness of breakout rookies the Heat have a lot on the line this year. Miami seemingly preparing itself for a strong 2026 free agency push, it almost feels like they are taking a gap year this year, you can talk about the addition of Powell, you can believe what Riley says, but the truth is all these players are on one year contracts and the heat rather go strong in 27’ than staying in mediocrity, the question is, can Riley build a roster that can even compete it a league with more talent than ever before, or is his time close to over in South Beach ?.