Two veteran NBA scouts who have watched the Heat recently came away with a feeling shared by some of their fans: The longterm outlook appears somewhat bleak.
“They have really screwed it up,” one Western Conference scout said. “They are in this mess by themselves, have only themselves to blame. They got deluded by one year of performance, fell much too in love with their own players. They have five bad contracts – James Johnson, [Hassan] Whiteside, [Dion] Waiters, Kelly Olynyk and now Ryan Anderson. Their whole team is just a bunch of other guys. They have too many mediocre players.