The Miami Heat will have just seven nationally televised games — on the ABC, ESPN or TNT networks — in the 2024-25 regular season after the team received 16 of said games last season.
Second-year player Jaime Jaquez Jr. suggested that the amount of nationally televised games the NBA handed the Heat implies that the league isn’t very high on the team.
“No matter what it is, we’re going to find a way to make us have a chip on our shoulder,” he said. “I think even going in, I think it’s seven national TV games for the Miami Heat. That’s what the NBA thinks of us. And that’s OK, because I guarantee you that they’re going to still be talking about us when the season goes on and we play our season.
“I think the media is still going to find a way to talk about us and what we’re doing and we’re going to definitely make some noise. They’re going to have no choice but to mention our names.”
Duncan Robinson also implied that the Heat are accustomed to overachieving when the squad is dealing with low expectations.
“I think it matters and I think people take note of it,” Robinson said. “I mean it’s definitely been sort of a theme and narrative around the facility, that nobody thinks we’re going to do anything.
“I think as long as I’ve been here, I feel like that’s really a place of comfort for us, not in the sense that we’re comfortable being there, but in the sense that we’ve been there plenty of times and we kind of know how to move forward from it. And we know what button to push and how to maximize opportunities when we’re in these sort of places.”
While Robinson and Jaquez seem to be embracing the fact that the Heat will play in drastically fewer nationally televised games compared to the season prior, the decision to diminish Miami’s time in the spotlight isn’t exactly unfounded when considering the lack of success that the team enjoyed in the 2023-24 campaign.
First, the Heat had a rollercoaster of a regular season, as Miami finished with a 46-36 record and had to play its way through the play-in tournament in order to secure a spot in the 2024 NBA Playoffs.
The Heat then didn’t capitalize on their playoff berth. The team lost in five games in the first round of the 2024 NBA Playoffs, and Miami was dealing with a bad case of the injury bug. Jimmy Butler, Terry Rozier and Josh Richardson all sat out for the entirety of the Heat’s best-of-seven series against Jayson Tatum and the Boston Celtics.
But perhaps Miami can take that next step as a team in the upcoming 2024-25 campaign if Jaquez is able to build upon what was an impressive inaugural season in the NBA. He averaged 11.9 points, 3.8 rebounds, 2.6 assists and 1.0 steal per game across 75 appearances (20 starts) with the Heat as a rookie.
Jaquez was in contention for one of the NBA’s major awards last season, considering he finished fourth in the league’s Rookie of the Year voting. Only Victor Wembanyama, Chet Holmgren and Brandon Miller received more votes for the hardware.
Here’s to hoping that not only Jaquez and Robinson — but the entire Heat team — will use the lack of nationally televised games on its 82-game schedule as motivation to prove the doubters wrong.