The Miami Heat are an American professional basketball team based in the southern city of Miami, Florida. The team was launched in 1988 and played in the 1988–89 season of the National Basketball Association. The next season they moved from the Western Conference to the Atlantic Division of the Eastern Conference.
The Heat are the most successful NBA team that joined after the ABA-NBA merger. After enduring a few seasons of mediocrity, there were several team changes in 1995 and 1996 under head coach Pat Riley, including the recruitment of Isaac Austin and P.J. Brown. They reached the Eastern Conference finals for the first time in 1996–97. They did not reach the conference finals again until 2004–05, under new head coach Stan Van Gundy and with Dwyane Wade as a leading team member.
At this time, they transferred to the Southeast Division. The next year the team won the NBA Finals, defeating the Dallas Mavericks. The head coach position was next taken by Erik Spoelstra. Their next successful season was 2010–11. After acquiring LeBron James as a player, they reached the NBA Finals again, losing to the Mavericks. They won the Finals in both 2012 and 2013, and won 27 successive games in February–March 2013. In 2013–14 they reached the Finals again but lost to San Antonio Spurs. James left the team in July 2014, and the 2014–15 season was less successful. After signing Jimmy Butler, the Heat returned again to the NBA Finals in 2020, losing to the Los Angeles Lakers. They returned to the Finals yet again in 2023 and lost to the Denver Nuggets after entering the postseason as the eighth seed, becoming the second team in league history to do so after the New York Knicks in 1999.
1987–1989: The NBA comes to Miami
In 1987, the NBA announced plans to add three teams to the league. In Florida, a state at the time without an NBA franchise, groups from Orlando, St. Petersburg and Miami applied for franchises. The Miami group was led by NBA Hall of Famer Billy Cunningham and former sports agent Lewis Schaffel, who received their financial backing from Carnival Cruise Lines founder Ted Arison, who became majority owner. Day-to-day operations would be handled by minority shareholders Cunningham and Schaffel. Julio Iglesias, Robert Sturges, Amancio Suarez and Raanan Katz were also minority shareholders. Sturges who was instrumental in bringing the NBA to Miami, represented the team on the NBA Board of Governors until 1995.
In April 1987, the NBA expansion committee endorsed the bids of the cities of Charlotte and Minneapolis. However, the committee was split between awarding the third and final franchise to Miami or Orlando. Finally, it was decided that the NBA would expand by 4 teams, with the Charlotte Hornets and Miami Heat debuting for the 1988–89 season and the Minnesota Timberwolves and Orlando Magic beginning for the 1989–90 season.
The team's name had been chosen by a survey in October 1986. After being accepted to the league, the team logo was created by Miami artist Mark Henderson, a graduate of The Art Institute of Fort Lauderdale.
As part of the expansion, the Heat would be assigned on a rotation with the three other expansion teams in a three-year process that would see Miami play in the Midwest Division of the Western Conference for their inaugural season before being moved to the Atlantic Division. The Heat came into the NBA for the 1988–89 season with a roster full of young players and journeymen. Among the players on the inaugural roster were first-round picks Rony Seikaly and Kevin Edwards, fellow rookies Grant Long and Sylvester Gray, as well as NBA vets Rory Sparrow, Jon Sundvold, Pat Cummings, Scott Hastings, Dwayne "Pearl" Washington and Billy Thompson. The team started out the season by losing its first 17 games, including a blowout 138–91, to Magic Johnson's Los Angeles Lakers, at the time an NBA record. Part of the first year struggles can be attributed to the Heat being placed in the Midwest Division of the Western Conference, despite being located on the East Coast. The team finished with a league-worst 15–67 win–loss record.
1989–1995: Glen Rice era The Heat picked Glen Rice from the University of Michigan in the first round of the 1989 NBA draft, and Sherman Douglas of Syracuse University in the 2nd round. The team also moved to the Atlantic Division of the Eastern Conference for the 1989–90 season, where they remained for the next 15 years until the creation of the Southeast division. However, the Heat continued to struggle and ended the season with an 18–64 record.
After the 1989–90 season, Miami was awarded the 3rd pick overall. The team pursued two trades, with the Denver Nuggets and the Houston Rockets, in exchange for 9th and 12th picks. They used these picks to select Willie Burton of the University of Minnesota and Alec Kessler of the University of Georgia. Burton sat out part of the season, and Kessler struggled with injury problems. While Rice, Seikaly and Douglas all showed improvement from the previous year, Miami went 24–58 and remained in the bottom of the Atlantic Division. Rothstein resigned as head coach at the end of the season, but returned to the Heat prior to the 2004–05 season as an assistant coach, a role he held until the end of the 2014–15 season.
After Rothstein's resignation prior to the 1991–92 season, the Heat hired Kevin Loughery, who had experience in the NBA both as a coach and a player, to be their new head coach. For the 1991 NBA draft, the team selected Steve Smith from Michigan State, a guard. With the help of rookie Smith, Rony Seikaly, and a more experienced Glen Rice, the Heat finished in fifth place in the Atlantic Division with a 38–44 record, including a loss to the Cleveland Cavaliers 148–80, and made the playoffs for the first time in their history. Playing the 1991 champions Chicago Bulls, the Heat were swept in three games. That season, Steve Smith made the NBA All-Rookie team.
The 1992–93 NBA season included the additions of draft choice Harold Miner of the University of Southern California, as well as trading a 1st round pick for Detroit Pistons forward/center John Salley.
Salley's addition was met with hope because of the role that he played on back to back championship Pistons teams. Unfortunately, by this point in his career, Salley was better suited for a role on another contending team rather than a heavy minutes rotation player on a playoff hopeful like Miami was. Miami would eventually make Salley available in the 1995 expansion draft where he'd eventually be drafted by the Toronto Raptors. The 1992–93 season started off poorly, with Smith missing time with a knee injury and Burton being lost for most of the year with a wrist injury. Upon Smith's return, Miami posted a winning record in February and March, but it was not enough to make up for the 13–27 hole they began in. They finished 36–46 and did not return to the playoffs.
The team fared better in 1993–94, posting the franchise's first-ever winning record at 42–40 and returning to the playoffs as the No. 8 seed versus the Atlanta Hawks. After Miami had a 2–1 series lead, Atlanta rallied from the deficit to win the best-of-5 series. After the season, Steve Smith was selected as a member of the 2nd Dream Team, the collection of NBA All-Stars who were selected to compete in the 1994 FIBA World Championship in Toronto as Team USA. Dream Team II, also made up of future Heat players Shaquille O'Neal and Dan Majerle, would go on to win the tournament.
In 1994–95, the team overhauled their roster, trading away Seikaly, Smith and Grant Long in exchange for Kevin Willis and Billy Owens.
1995–2000: Tim Hardaway and Alonzo Mourning era With a losing record for the franchise and lack of identity or brand recognition, Lewis Schaffel and Billy Cunningham decided to sell their interest in the team. Micky Arison, son of franchise patriarch Ted Arison, stepped forward to purchase a controlling interest in the Heat on February 13, 1995, ceding control of the franchise to his family. As the new managing general partner, Arison hired Dave Wohl as general manager, who fired head coach Kevin Loughery and replaced him with Alvin Gentry on an interim basis to try to shake up the 17–30 Heat. Gentry went 15–21 for the remaining 36 games of the season for a 32–50 record overall, 10 games off the previous year's mark. During that interim period with Gentry, the Heat got one of the best wins in franchise history when they beat the Los Angeles Clippers 126–83. Furthermore, Rice scored 56 points against the Orlando Magic, setting the record for the highest individual single-game point total at the time. At the NBA All-Star Game in Phoenix, Arizona, Heat player Harold Miner repeated as the winner of the NBA Slam Dunk Contest and Glen Rice won the NBA Three Point Shootout. As Arison began remodeling the Miami Heat into a championship-contending organization, the continued improvements of the Heat players garnered major media attention, although the Heat would go on to miss the playoffs for the fifth time in seven years. However, the fortunes of the Miami Heat would change dramatically in the summer of 1995; the off-season of that year became one of the most poignant in the history of the franchise.
1995–1996: Arrival of Pat Riley
Setting the tone for a new era of Heat basketball, Arison hired Pat Riley to be the new head coach and team president of the Miami Heat; Riley resigned as coach of the New York Knicks immediately following the 1994–1995 season. In a welcoming ceremony, the city of Miami held a parade for Riley when he first arrived at Miami. Shortly thereafter, Randy Pfund, Riley's former assistant on the Los Angeles Lakers, was brought in to be the executive vice president of the Miami Heat. Determined to bring a championship to Miami, Riley dropped a bombshell two nights before the season began, sending Glen Rice, Matt Geiger and four other players to the Hornets in exchange for All-Star center Alonzo Mourning. At the beginning of the season, the Heat won eleven of their first fourteen games. In mid-December, the Heat faced the Knicks for the first time in New York; Riley received a very negative reception from the fans, who often called him "Pat the Rat" for leaving the Knicks, something Riley embraced.
By the end of February, with the Heat languishing at 24–29, Riley continued overhauling the team. In a flurry of midseason deals, Riley completed three separate deals involving ten players that would include the acquisition of Tim Hardaway, Chris Gatling and Walt Williams. However, before those three could arrive in Miami, there was a game to be played against the 72–10 Chicago Bulls. With only eight players available on the roster, the Heat hustled to get their ninth teammate, in order to accommodate league rules; had Tony Smith not arrived in time for the team, Riley would have literally "signed someone off the street". Rex Chapman, who was traded to the Heat from the Washington Bullets, led the Heat to the biggest upset victory in Miami Heat history, defeating the Bulls 113–104.
Upon joining the team, Mourning and Hardaway quickly became the centerpiece of the Miami Heat; Mourning's defensive presence and rebounding expertise complimented Hardaway's play-making as a point guard, promptly forming one of the most dangerous tandems in the league at the time. With Hardaway and Mourning setting franchise records, a new excitement came from the Miami community. Finishing with a 42–40 record, the Heat made the playoffs for the third time in franchise history, but were swept in three games by the Chicago Bulls. However, the new-look Heat garnered optimism for a bright future, and they would continue to improve the following season.
1996–1997: Making the conference finals