The Miami Heat’s new-look group has not waited for training camp to start acting like a team.
Over the last several days, the roster Pat Riley rebuilt around Giannis Antetokounmpo has been together for a player-run minicamp that mixed basketball with golf, karaoke and, on Friday, a day out on Klay Thompson’s boat. For a team with this much change, the point of the week has been simple: get some of the awkwardness out of the way before Sept. 29.
Antetokounmpo made sure the message from the water was loud enough for everyone to hear. In one Instagram post captioned “Boat ride with Captain Klay!”
he shared photos of the group. In another, built around a photo of himself with Thompson, he wrote, “Critics have seats.
Champions have scars.”
The Heat’s official account had already been rolling out glimpses of the gathering all week. On Thursday it posted golf footage and invited fans to judge the swings. By Saturday, it was sharing a group photo it suggested belonged on an album cover.
Put it on an album cover 😎 pic.twitter.com/Tbkrb59l8m
- Miami HEAT (@MiamiHEAT) September 12, 2026
That the minicamp has leaned so heavily into everything but basketball is exactly the point. September get-togethers are about building the connections that make the basketball easier later.
And for this Heat team, the need is bigger than usual.
Miami brought in Antetokounmpo and Bobby Portis from Milwaukee in the deal that sent Tyler Herro, Jaime Jaquez Jr., Kel’el Ware and Kasparas Jakucionis to the Bucks. The team also added Tim Hardaway Jr. in free agency and landed Thompson on a two-year deal worth about $11.5 million after his Dallas buyout.
That means four rotation-level veterans are stepping into a group that missed the 2026 postseason. It also means the returning players, with Bam Adebayo leading the way, are not just making small adjustments. They’re absorbing a new hierarchy.
Antetokounmpo is going to set the tone for how the Heat play. Thompson and Hardaway are here to stretch the floor around him. Portis is the one newcomer who already knows the star’s habits from their time together in Milwaukee.
That sort of fit does not come from a roster sheet. It comes from learning where a teammate wants the ball, when he likes to cut and who takes the shot when a possession breaks down. A voluntary camp does not solve all of that, but it does move the early growing pains into a setting where nobody is keeping score.
There’s also a reason the chemistry angle matters so much here.
Antetokounmpo has already lived through the version of a team that never quite clicked. After a 20-point home loss to Oklahoma City on Jan. 21, he was asked about the Bucks’ run of blowout defeats and went straight at the issue.
“Our chemistry’s not there. Guys are being selfish,” Antetokounmpo said that night, explaining that teammates were chasing their own shots instead of the right one.
In that same exchange, he also said that demanding the ball and confronting teammates had never really been how he operates.
Seen through that lens, a boat full of new teammates two weeks before camp feels less like a casual offseason hangout and more like a direct answer to the problem he publicly called out before leaving Milwaukee.
Heat coach Erik Spoelstra has a phrase for this kind of moment. He often says he likes players who “don't get sick at sea” and called the week a good start to the new era.
Spo always talks about liking players who "don't get sick at sea." So a good start to this new Heat era! https://t.co/ffpV3VVbhq
- Barry Jackson (@flasportsbuzz) September 12, 2026
That line is about staying steady when things get rough, and in this case the literal sea test happened to fit the mood. Thompson is the reason the boat was part of the story in the first place.
He has owned a boat since 2020 and used to commute to Warriors practices on a 37-foot fishing vessel across the bay. Miami, with its spot on the edge of Biscayne Bay, seems built for that kind of fit. Riley leaned into it when the signing became official, saying the franchise was “blessed that Klay chose the Heat” in its pursuit of championships.
Thompson also brings serious shooting history with him. The 36-year-old enters his 14th season fourth on the league’s all-time list for made 3-pointers, 74 behind former Heat guard Ray Allen for third. He’s a career 41 percent shooter from deep and has made more than 200 threes in a season 11 times.
For the Heat, that kind of shooting is not a luxury. It’s part of the structure around Antetokounmpo.
The timing of all this only adds to the urgency. Training camp opens Sept.
- The preseason starts Oct. 3 against the Toronto Raptors in Quebec City.
The regular season begins Oct. 21 against the Minnesota Timberwolves. Media day is a little more than two weeks away, which leaves roughly 17 days between the boat trip and the first official practice.
That is not much time, but it is enough for some of the early introductions to happen now instead of in front of cameras later.
There’s also a historical echo floating around this roster. Winderman’s Saturday column connected this group to the 2004-05 Heat, pointing to the similarities while also noting the warning that comes with the comparison.
That was the season after Riley traded for Shaquille O’Neal, when Miami won an Eastern Conference-best 59 games before falling in the conference finals. The parallel is imperfect, though. That team had Dwyane Wade rising alongside a still-dominant O’Neal, and it still needed a second season and a reshaped supporting cast before it won the title.
This Heat version has Antetokounmpo at 31 and Adebayo in his prime, but it is also depending on two guards in their mid-30s to provide the shooting around him.
Golf swings and karaoke nights won’t answer the biggest questions. They won’t tell the Heat whether Thompson and Hardaway provide enough spacing for an Antetokounmpo-Adebayo frontcourt, or who handles creation when the star is off the floor.
That uncertainty is part of why the market has been cooler on the team than the players have been. It’s also why Miami spent August still looking for one more piece.
Still, the week did establish something important: intent. Antetokounmpo left Milwaukee openly frustrated with a locker room he felt was playing for itself, and his first real stretch with his new teammates ended with a caption aimed straight at the doubters.
The Heat don’t need the boat trip to be the story. They need the version of Antetokounmpo who organized it to show up on Sept.
- Based on this week, that part already looks in place.
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