A few days ago, anyone hoping to see Miami Heat guard Tyler Herro return sooner than anticipated received some cause for optimism.
During a preseason bout between the Heat and Atlanta Hawks, Hawks legend Dominique Wilkins said that according to some Heat personnel, Herro — who underwent surgery on his left foot around a month ago — will be good to go for the start of the 2025-26 regular season.
During yesterday's game, a broadcaster said, "I was talking to the Miami Heat, some of their personnel said Tyler Herro will be ready to go at the beginning of the regular season" pic.twitter.com/uscqnUTtIg
— Heat Nation (@HeatNationCom) October 14, 2025
However, Five Reasons Sports’ Ethan J. Skolnick has provided a less glorious update. He said that he hasn’t heard anything about Herro being healthy enough to play in the team’s season opener against the Orlando Magic next week.
“And remember, Tyler’s not gonna be in there for I don’t know how many weeks, okay,” Skolnick said. “People are saying now there was a report he’d be back by opening night. I’m not hearing that. That was something I think Dominique Wilkins reported on the Hawks broadcast. I don’t think that’s happening, but you’re looking at like three weeks, four weeks into the season.”
In some ways, the Heat have done a decent job of collectively picking up the slack from a scoring standpoint with their top bucket-getter sidelined this preseason.
Miami has scored 104 points or more in all but one of its five preseason contests thus far, and its preseason finale is scheduled for Friday night against the Memphis Grizzlies. Second-year big man Kel’el Ware has been the team’s leading scorer sans Herro in that span, and nine players are averaging at least 7.0 points per game.
But it’s hard to ignore that the Heat have one of the worst offensive ratings in the league this preseason, and they’ve yet to win a game. They’re 0-5 going into their preseason finale.
The team is going to need to find a more sustainable offensive approach if it wants to stay afloat until Herro’s return. Fans shouldn’t be surprised at all if the Heat go through some rough patches on offense to begin the campaign, as the former University of Kentucky star was the engine that made their offense go last season.
Across a career-high 77 games played with Miami last season, he averaged 23.9 points on 47.2 percent shooting from the field and 37.5 percent shooting from deep to go along with 5.5 assists per contest. Herro was easily the Heat’s best scorer and arguably their best facilitator.
While it’s unfortunate that Herro is expected to be sidelined for some time to start the new season, his absence will allow opportunities for other players on the team to show off their scoring skill sets.
