Noise that the Miami Heat are a better basketball team without guard Tyler Herro on the court has grown louder during the team’s current tough stretch. Since Herro made his season debut against the Dallas Mavericks on Nov. 24, the Heat have lost five of their eight games played, including three of the six contests he’s suited up in.
All of a sudden, the Heat have dropped to the No. 8 seed in the East amid their four-game losing streak. A lot of folks have had harsh criticism for Herro amid Miami’s skid, and while the former University of Kentucky star has heard the noise, he’s not all too concerned about the narrative.
“Nothing new,” he said. “It is what it is.”
Herro also said that the noise doesn’t really annoy him. According to him, “real basketball heads know what’s going on.”
“Uh, not really,” Herro said. “I feel like real basketball heads know what’s going on. Twitter stuff is Twitter.”
It is true that the Heat haven’t fared all that great with Herro in the lineup, but he’s still given them great scoring production so far in his seventh NBA campaign. He’s averaging 23.2 points per game on fantastic shooting splits, as he’s shooting 50-plus percent from the field, 40-plus percent from 3-point range and 90-plus percent from the charity stripe.
While he’s been somewhat of a lackluster playmaker for his teammates since making his season debut (he’s averaging just 2.3 assists per game), his job is to score first and foremost, and he is doing just that in bunches.
Plus, it’s simply too early to come to the conclusion that the Heat are better without Herro on the floor. Herro has played in just six games this season and hasn’t even had much time to get his feet wet, as he made his season debut just weeks ago.
If the Heat are still stacking up losses in March and April, then such an opinion might be more justified (dependent on other factors), but they could be clicking on all cylinders with him leading the way by then.
The Heat can stem the bleeding and win their fourth game with Herro this season when they take on the Toronto Raptors on Dec. 15.
