Heat's core four enters sixth season together with 'a lot more that we still have to do'

MIAMI — The most successful eras in Miami Heat history usually don’t last longer than four seasons. And if they do go longer than four seasons ... it’s not for much longer.

The Alonzo Mourning and Tim Hardaway era went for six seasons, Dwyane Wade and Shaquille O’Neal played together for four seasons, and the Heat’s Big 3 era featuring the superstar trio of Chris Bosh, LeBron James and Wade lasted four seasons.

This current era belongs on that list, too, as the Jimmy Butler-led version of the Heat has turned into one of the most successful and memorable iterations of the team in franchise history despite not yet winning an NBA title. Since Butler joined the Heat prior to the 2019-20 season, the Heat has made three Eastern Conference finals appearances and two NBA Finals appearances while becoming just the second No. 8 seed in league history to advance to the NBA Finals in 2023 before falling to the Denver Nuggets in the championship series.

But Heat history says time could be running out on this era, as the combination of Bam Adebayo, Butler, Tyler Herro and Duncan Robinson begins its sixth season together on Wednesday against the Orlando Magic at Kaseya Center (7:30 p.m. ET, FanDuel Sports Network — Sun). Those four players are the only ones currently on the Heat’s roster who have been with the team since this era began in the 2019-20 season.

During a sit-down interview with a small group of reporters last week, Heat president Pat Riley labeled the upcoming season as a “crucial year” and a “telling year” for the team.

“That doesn’t happen if you don’t win in this league,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said to the Miami Herald when asked about the longevity of this core. “Those four guys have been part of a lot of winning. Yes, they give you the institutional corporate knowledge for the next wave. So it fast tracks a lot of the stuff. But that’s the deal and that’s not lost on us. It’s hard to win in this league. It’s hard to find a core group that can win consistently. We’ve had some disappointing losses and playoff losses. But if you just look at it in totality, that group … how many have won as many games or playoff series as them?”

Since Adebayo, Butler, Herro and Robinson became teammates during the 2019 offseason, the Heat has recorded the seventh-most regular-season wins (227) in the NBA during their first five seasons together. This Heat core has also racked up the second-most playoff wins (39) in the league during that time behind only the Boston Celtics.

Among the four teams that have recorded the most playoff wins since the start of the 2019-20 season, the Heat is the only one that has not won a championship during that span. The others in that group that have won NBA titles during this stretch are the Celtics, Nuggets and Milwaukee Bucks.

“It just shows that we’ve done a lot throughout our first five years,” Adebayo said. “But I feel like we still got another level. Because every year, we all come back better. This year just feels different. The energy feels different, and not just for us as a team. But the arena, the staff, the energy just feels different.”

One of the reasons for that is because the roster continues to change around Adebayo, Butler, Herro and Robinson.

From a Heat roster that included players such as Goran Dragic, Jae Crowder, Andre Iguodala and Kelly Olympic during the first season of this era to now featuring Terry Rozier and a supporting cast made up of the Heat’s last three first-round picks Nikola Jovic, Jaime Jaquez Jr. and Kel’el Ware.

“I feel like we have a good blend of guys who have been here before and have some expectations and have a standard they want to set and we also have a nice influx of new faces,” Robinson said. “I think that we have the potential to walk that line between maintaining an important level of continuity, which is really important in today’s NBA, while also having a newfound energy. That’s always a delicate dance.

“But I think everybody so far has had such a great approach to training camp, preseason. I think when you lose the way we did last year [in the first round of the playoffs], I think there’s an understanding that we may have the same guys but we can’t just run it back the same way. It’s got to look different, it’s got to feel different.”

It may look and feel different this season, but the Heat’s goals are the same.

“I feel like there’s a lot more that we still have to do,” Herro said. “I think just being back on top of the East, even just throughout the regular season. I don’t think we’re a team or an organization that just wants to be in that play-in tournament. So I think that’s goal No. 1 is just being able to play and be healthy and be out there for a whole regular season and be a top-three, top-four team in the East with home-court advantage. Then from there, getting back to the conference finals and winning that and then winning a championship. Every year we have that goal and it’s not going to change.”

The outside perception of the Heat’s core has changed in recent years, though, after back-to-back disappointing regular seasons and last season’s early playoff exit. The Heat has needed to qualify for the playoffs through the play-in tournament in each of the last two seasons and won just one playoff game last season before being eliminated in the first round by the eventual NBA champion Celtics.

This has most NBA prognosticators predicting a middling season for a Heat core that has been among the league’s winningest since it was established in 2019. According to BetOnline.ag, the Heat has the seventh-best betting odds to win the East.

“I think people, especially in this profession, are quick to forget. That’s just what happens,” Herro said. “Whatever is fresh is all people remember. When you bring out the resume, our era has been successful. But when you think about the last year, it hasn’t been. So that’s what people remember and we just got to bring it back. We’re the same team. We’ve gotten better. We’re the same core and we just got to prove it and stay healthy. I’m trying to play as many games as possible, Jimmy is trying to do the same.”

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