2023 Annual Stocktake
2023 is a legendary year for the Heat.
In the regular season of the 2022-2023 season, the Heat finished with a 44-38 record. This record is eighth in the East, and it is still unknown whether it will make the playoffs.
Heading into the playoffs, the Heat lost their first game to the Hawks, and just when Heat fans thought they were going to say goodbye to the playoffs, they defeated the Bulls in Game 2 to make the playoffs in eighth place.
The Heat, who entered the playoffs, seemed to have completely changed teams, facing the league's No. 1 Bucks in the first round, and defeated their opponents with an astonishing 4-1, becoming the sixth Black Eight team in NBA history.
In everyone's discussion about how dark this black eight team is, the Heat team won Knicks and Celtics successively, and reached the finals with a super black posture.
In the Finals, although they lost to the Nuggets in the end, the Heat's 2023 season was up and down enough and magical enough.
The team's journey is magical enough, and even more amazing are the undrafted players who created this amazing Heat.
With Tyler Herro out injured, the Heat needed someone to step up to fill the void, and that's when three undrafted players stepped up, with Gabe Vincent, Max Strus and Caleb Martin seizing the opportunity well, and they became indispensable players throughout the playoffs, making important contributions to the team's Black Eight Miracle.
As much as they made the team, so did the trio, and they got a gift of fate when they entered the offseason: Vincent and Strus received big contracts, and Martin was seen as a non-sale by the team.
The 2023 Heat performance was impressive enough for Jimmy Butler and Bam Adebayo to be able to, but the fact that they were swept in the Finals series also exposed the problem that the Heat had no one to step up in the critical moment of the siege.
Fortunately, the management of the Heat recognized the problem and also wanted to bring in an elite-level scorer to step up and solve the battle on his own when the team was in trouble.
So, entering the offseason, the Heat are desperately pursuing Damian Lillard. But what people never expected was that Damion Lillard, who had been eye-to-eye with Miami all summer, made a wedding dress for his rival Milwaukee in the same district at the end.
Despite the failure to chase Lillard, the Heat still had a good run in the free agency market throughout the offseason, leaving behind the veteran Kevin Love, who played an important role last season, and signing Josh Richardson and Thomas Bryant in Denver with a very cost-effective **. In addition, they also selected Mexican Jacques Jr. with the 18th pick in the draft.
These operations didn't see anything special at the time, but after entering the regular season of the new season, it is not difficult for fans to find that the Heat's commotion is very targeted and has received unexpected results.
So far in the new season, the Heat have achieved an 11-9 record and are temporarily in seventh place in the East. But the Heat's biggest gain is Jacques Jr., who has averaged 12 points and 3 points per game so far in the regular season9 plate 25 help 11 steal, effective shooting rate of 59%, including 39 three-point shooting3%。
Most importantly, Jacques has been fully integrated into the Heatball's dynamic offensive system, and he's playing a huge role.
As Jimmy Butler said, the Heat's goal is always to win the championship, and we hope that the Heat will bring us more surprises and magic in the 2024 season.