The Heat are already Tyler Herro's team

Tyler Herro was so close to taking the easy way out.

A scuffle erupted at the end of Miami’s surprising Jimmy Butler-less win over the Houston Rockets in late December. Amen Thompson was locked up with Tyler Herro and suddenly threw him to the floor. Chaos ensued, with six ejections following the resulting brouhaha.

Herro was asked after the game if anything had led to that moment or if it was just the inevitable outcome of a physical game. “Just a physical game,” Herro said. Then he paused for a loooong time, smirked, and continued, “Guess that’s what happens when someone’s scoring, throwing dimes, doing the whole thing. I’d get mad, too.”

He was right to talk his s***. The Rockets are far from the only ones to get lit up like a victory cigar by Herro this season.

On the year, Herro is averaging 24.1 points, 5.5 rebounds, and 5.1 assists on pristine 47.8% shooting from the field and 41.0% bombing from deep. Every single one of those numbers is a career-high (Herro is a leading candidate for Most Improved Player for a reason).

The most blinding number is the outside shooting. Herro is putting up 9.6 triples per game, fifth-most in the entire NBA for qualifying players. Of the four players ahead of him, only Steph Curry (41.8%) swishes more often. Not bad company to be in.

Herro is equally dangerous on the catch (43.1%) and off the bounce (39.0%), launching about equal numbers of each. He needs zero room to get them off, too. This was taken with 18 seconds left on the shot clock!

At 6’5”, Herro has always been able to shoot over smaller guardsmen. Longer, physical defenders used to give him trouble when he was on the ball, but he’s had little problem shedding them this year. Herro has paired an improved handle with quicker decision-making to punish minuscule miscues, and once he has the advantage, he doesn’t give it back. It can be cruel. He’ll play with his food:

Herro has become an excellent off-ball mover, particularly compared to earlier in his career, when he tended to float aimlessly while waiting for the ball. He is particularly adept in the handoff game, where he ranks in the 96th percentile as a scorer. Herro will rocket around with the precise arcs and severe angles of an architect until he finds a sliver of South Beach sunlight:

Fun fact: Herro is shooting 46% on three-pointers taken after one dribble.

He’s hunting triples the way he used to hunt pull-up fifteen-footers. More than half of his shots are from deep, and just 5% are long midranges — down from 15% last season.

In December, Herro explained his mindset to Couper Moorhead. “I feel like with my body type and the way I play, it’s like Steph Curry. I try to make my shot profile as identical to Steph as possible. Steph shoots a lot of threes obviously, the rest of them are to the rim, layups and free throws. That’s kind of what I’m trying to resemble is literally what Steph’s doing.”

Curry, of course, is a different animal altogether, but the inspiration is clear. Look at the difference in Herro’s shot charts. First, last year:

Now, this year:

Notice how few dots there are outside the restricted area. Notice, also, how deep some of his above-the-break threes are, another Curry influence. It’s nice to have a 35-foot escape hatch:

Defenses have always respected Herro’s outside shot. The gameplan used to be to force him inside the arc, where they could easily goad him into pull-up middies. But there, too, Herro has dramatically improved. 20% of his shots are at the rim, his highest share in three years and his most on an absolute level ever.

Herro doesn’t have an explosive first step, but he’s become adept at using the threat of his three-pointer to get defenders out of their defensive stance. His dribbling is noticeably tighter. It gets to the point. A Hemingway novel, not Tolstoy. Every move is calculated:

Herro is stronger this year than ever, which has made him far more comfortable finishing in a crowd:

That strength also translates to whistles. Nobody will mistake Herro for Giannis Antetokounmpo anytime soon, but he’s above the positional median in drawing fouls for the first time in his career. Herro is more willing and able to weaponize his shoulders.

With gains all over the floor, Herro has become one of the league’s most efficient shooters. Herro’s true shooting percentage of 62.7% is in the league’s top decile (and miles above his next-highest mark of 56.6%). Players almost never increase their volume and their accuracy to this degree simultaneously, particularly this late into their careers.

Since we’re still on the subject of career highs, we’d be remiss not to discuss playmaking. Even as Herro seeks his shot, he’s averaging his most potential assists per 100 possessions while simultaneously notching his lowest bad-pass percentage. The decision-making is crisper. Herro is picking apart double teams both often and more precisely than ever before:

His passing has even opened up his scoring, like here, where he petrifies Dillon Brooks with the oopsy-doodle:

Unfortunately, teams have been picking Herro apart, too. The best you can say about the former Kentucky Wildcat on defense is that he generally tries hard (a must on an Erik Spoelstra team) and never fouls. The worst you can say is that he has quicksand feet, alligator arms (a 6’3” wingspan? In this economy?), and a propensity for ramming into a screen like a crash test dummy:

Advanced stats rate him somewhere between comfortably below-average to execrable on the defensive end (and very, very good offensively). Personally, I lean toward the former. Lineups with Herro on the floor have been at the median defensively (even with fellow dartboard Duncan Robinson playing next to him), and the Heat have grown adept at mitigating his weakness with funky zones, pre-switching, and general Bam Adebayoness. At least in the regular season, Spoelstra can effectively hide Herro, avoiding too much damage.

One related area where Herro does his own damage is defensive rebounding, where he is excellent for his position. A silver lining of the Heat working to keep Herro out of the action is that it allows him to stalk rebounds once the ball is in the air. Directly grabbing the ball allows Herro to sprint immediately into semi-transition, where Herro can cook scrambling defenses with a pull-up three or a drive to the basket.

Herro’s offense far outweighs his defensive weakness, and he is playing at an All-Star level. For a guy who has been in the league seemingly forever, he is also younger than some people realize; he’s turning 25 in two weeks. That said, he doesn’t have the blistering athleticism to become a true superstar scorer. Everything with Herro is craft and skill, and he’ll hit the limits of that at some point.

Herro won’t ever be the best player on a championship squad, and that’s okay! There are maybe 10-ish players in the NBA who can drive the bus, and that’s with Carvana-level accounting.

So where does that leave the Heat? Whatever happens with Jimmy Butler, it’s pretty clear he’s on his way out of town sooner or later. It was already Herro’s offense. Now, it’s Herro’s team.

The Heat with Herro on the court and Butler off are essentially breakeven, and the team is 5-5 without Butler playing at all this season. That’s not bad, but “not bad” isn’t what Pat Riley aims for.

Miami is at a crossroads. Too much hinges upon what return Pat Riley gets for Butler to make even an educated guess as to what they look like next season. They’ve rarely been a team willing to take steps back, but it’s hard to figure out how they can take one forward.

Then again, none of that is Herro’s problem. Miami has gotten out of plenty of sticky situations before. If they’re to do so again, it’ll be in no small part because the Boy Wonder is all grown up.