Ira Winderman: Allowing uneven East to dictate Heat future would be a fool's errand by Riley

Ira Winderman, South Florida Sun Sentinel on May 5, 2026

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MIAMI — The problem with being reduced to playoff bystander is the danger of getting caught up in possibilities lost, at a time when rational thought about realistic possibilities is paramount.

As he wrapped up his team’s season last week, Miami Heat President Pat Riley spoke of having pushed for the playoffs, instead of a midseason asset reset, because of what the team viewed as a potential wide-open East race.

Hope trafficking? Sure.

But hasn’t that been the case with the Heat since the Big Three of LeBron James, Chris Bosh and Dwyane Wade fractured 12 years ago?

Since Riley spoke last week of an open East, the Heat, from the postseason sidelines, watched the No. 8 Orlando Magic push the No. 1 Detroit Pistons to a Game 7, the No. 7 Philadelphia 76ers eliminate the No. 2 Boston Celtics and the No. 5 Toronto Raptors going to a Game 7 against the No. 4 Cleveland Cavaliers.

Factor in a few shaky moments for the No. 3 New York Knicks early in their six-game elimination of the No. 6 Atlanta Hawks, and it would be difficult to argue there is anything as close to imposing in the East as the Oklahoma City Thunder and San Antonio Spurs in the West.

Perhaps sensing what was to be teased in the first round in the East as he spoke last week, Riley offered a why-not-us take that either was prescient or puzzling.

“The only two teams,” Riley said, “that I would consider that I would be uncomfortable playing against would be OKC and San Antonio, and they’re out there (in the Western Conference).

“But if I can get into the (NBA) Finals, just like we did in ’23, then I would be happy.”

That, of course, is another element of what could be viewed as misguided optimism/hope trafficking, that outlier push to the 2023 NBA Finals with Jimmy Butler against the Denver Nuggets out of the play-in as the East No. 8 seed.

Since that 2023 postseason run before falling short, the Heat have won one playoff game, without even that the past two years. Butler by then had reached his Heat expiration date. But instead of regrouping, there was the hasty reach for Terry Rozier, of which Riley acknowledged, “We all know that turned out to be a nightmare.”

And even after that, incremental pushes forward instead of a reset, including landing Andrew Wiggins and Davion Mitchell in the 2025 trade of Butler, and the Norman Powell addition last summer.

A year ago, it added up to 10th place in the East. This past season, again 10th place in the East, in a season that ended 17 games behind the first-place Pistons, who now play on.

And, still, another drag of hopium.

“I’m not dismissing any at the top of the conference, here in the East, because they’re all very good teams,” Riley said. “But take a look at what’s going on, it’s like very competitive. Anybody can almost win.”

When a franchise has won three championships and advanced to the NBA Finals four other times, “almost” has no place as the target for a reset.

The Heat are not the Pistons, who on Sunday won their first playoff series since 2008. The Heat are not the Magic, who with Sunday’s loss in Detroit remain without a series win since 2010.

The Heat have done enough in recent years to merit the right to step back, reset, not desperately chase fool’s gold in the belief of seizing on the perception of a down conference.

And yet, as one of the parties in the Heat hierarchy privately expressed recently, the view is that this could be the Summer of 2019 all over again, when the Heat exited from the lottery with Tyler Herro as the draft pick and exited free agency with Butler. By season’s end that time, the Heat were in the 2020 NBA Finals.

So, yes, possible.

But it has to be the right pick, the right player.

Basically, lightning striking in the same place seven years later.

Otherwise, no easy way out, no matter what the thinking about the state of the East after all the first-round mayhem that ultimately held to seed form, beyond the No. 2 Boston Celtics losing in the absence of Jayson Tatum.

Next season, Tatum likely will be back on the floor for the Celtics for a Game 7, unlike Saturday against the 76ers. Next season, Tyrese Haliburton will be back for the Pacers. Next season, the Pistons, Cavaliers, 76ers or Knicks could be more emboldened by the ongoing strides of this season.

Riley has spent the majority of the past two decades attempting to distance himself from his book-selling mantra of championship or misery.

From the depths of the bottom of the standings, with Alonzo Mourning again sent to scowl from the set of the draft lottery this coming Sunday in Chicago, the time has come for the Heat to reset with a championship mentality — no matter how long such a reset might require, no matter where the rest of the conference does or does not stand.

Even if the East was down this season, it was better, far better, than the Heat this season, as the first round of the playoffs ultimately showed.

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