One NBA scout has advocated for Miami Heat guard Tyler Herro to be a starter for the team in the 2024-25 season and also brought up the premise of Herro starting alongside Terry Rozier in the backcourt.
“I mean, personally, I think Herro should start,” the scout told Sports Illustrated. “Herro doesn’t need the ball in his hands, but he does go off script a lot. I love Terry. I think he’s a little bit of everything, and I think they would be okay starting together.”
But the anonymous scout went on to point out that neither Herro nor Rozier are great defensive players.
“But if you do that, you’ve got to have some presence because your frontcourt is small and neither are defensive stars as it is,” the scout noted. “So that does put pressure on Bam [Adebayo]. The Heat don’t like to switch. Straight up, this is what we’re going to do, we’re the Heat! In many cases, that does help.”
The Heat have several other quality players on their roster beyond Herro and Rozier who can produce in minutes at one or both of the guard spots. After all, Josh Richardson was a rotation piece for the Heat during the 2023-24 regular season, and he stands out as a better defender than Herro and Rozier.
Additionally, Duncan Robinson is one of the better 3-point shooters in the NBA today, and he enjoyed a bounce-back year last season. He averaged 12.9 points per game while shooting 39.5 percent from deep on a high volume of attempts (7.0 per game).
However, Herro and Rozier stood out as Miami’s best guards last season, particularly on the offensive side of the ball. Starting with Herro, he was limited to just 42 appearances during the 2023-24 regular season but finished in a tie with Jimmy Butler for the highest scoring average on the team at 20.8 points per contest.
Rozier played in only 31 of Miami’s regular-season games after he was dealt to the team from the Charlotte Hornets in exchange for Kyle Lowry and a 2027 first-round pick, but he averaged 16.4 points per game during that span, which marked the fourth-highest scoring average of any player to suit up for the Heat.
Both Herro and Rozier got a taste of what it’s like to start for the Heat last season. Herro started 40 of the 42 games he appeared in with Miami during the 2023-24 regular season, while Rozier started all but one of the 31 games he played for the Heat franchise.
Despite their limitations on the defensive end of the floor, their knacks for putting the ball through the hoop suggest that perhaps Miami should begin the season with Herro and Rozier as its starting backcourt.