Klay Thompson’s first stretch with the Miami Heat has not gone the way anyone around the team wanted, and the veteran shooter may already be sliding toward the hot seat.
Miami has opened 0-3, and the starting group has looked shaky enough that Erik Spoelstra could soon be forced to rethink it. Thompson, who arrived later in the summer after a buyout with the Dallas Mavericks, has stayed in the lineup despite a rocky preseason and uneven early returns.
The shot quality has been the biggest problem for Thompson himself. He came out of preseason shooting 26.9% from the floor and 15% from 3-point range, and through three games he is still only at 34.5% overall and 34.6% from deep. That is better than where he started, but not by much.
The larger concern for Miami sits on defense. The Heat are 27th in the league on that end, with only the Utah Jazz, Warriors and Phoenix Suns behind them. That is a brutal place for a team that was supposed to be leaning on a high-level defense built around Davion Mitchell, Andrew Wiggins, Giannis Antetokounmpo and Bam Adebayo.
Instead, the numbers have been ugly. Wiggins owns an eye-popping 141.5 defensive rating, Thompson is right behind him at 134.9, and those two also carry the worst net ratings on the roster. The sample is small, but the starting unit has been getting hammered.
That matters because Miami’s expectations were built to be much higher than this. Antetokounmpo’s blockbuster arrival pushed the team’s ceiling up, and Thompson’s arrival only added to the buzz. Now, though, the early results are forcing an uncomfortable question about who gets to stay in the first five.
If Spoelstra decides a change is needed, Thompson looks like the most obvious candidate. Antetokounmpo and Adebayo are not moving anywhere.
Wiggins, who Miami extended in the offseason, also appears safe. Mitchell could be a point of discussion, but the Heat do not currently have a ready-made replacement on the roster.
Pelle Larsson and Tim Hardaway Jr. are the names that could come into the mix if Miami does shake things up. Neither reserve has been shooting it especially well, but both have posted much better net ratings than Thompson so far.
There is still time for the Heat to sort this out, but Thompson is no longer in the kind of situation he enjoyed with Steve Kerr and the Warriors, where patience came more freely during his prime years.
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