The Miami Heat are beginning to sort out the edges of their roster with the regular season right around the corner, and Friday brought two more moves as they head into their final preseason game against the Orlando Magic.
Miami signed forward Ezra Ausar to an Exhibit 10 deal and waived Ian Schieffelin in a corresponding move. Both players are expected to land with the Sioux Falls Skyforce for the upcoming season.
Ausar, 23, went undrafted this summer out of USC. His college path took him from East Carolina, where he spent two seasons after starting in 2022, to Utah for his junior year, and then to USC for his final stop. At East Carolina, he was a steady scorer in the 11-to-12-point range, and at USC he got even more chances to put the ball in the basket, finishing close to 15 points per game.
The question with Ausar has always been the same: the shot from deep. He barely took threes for most of his college run, with his lone notable stretch coming in his second and final season at East Carolina, when he shot 37.5 percent from three-point range while averaging only 0.2-0.5 attempts. For him to stick at the NBA level, that perimeter game has to come along in a major way, and Miami is betting its developmental setup can help him get there.
Schieffelin, also 23 and undrafted this summer, remains an interesting hold for the organization. He’s known for a rugged, physical style, and that even led Clemson football coach Dabo Swinney in 2025 to urge him to try football in his last season as a graduate senior. There’s a path for him to get a look with the active roster later in the season if injuries pile up, particularly if recent acquisition Nick Richards doesn’t settle in at backup center.
Vladislav Goldin has also been making his case for a standard roster spot, which leaves Miami with a potential traffic jam in the backup frontcourt as the season gets underway.
In Other News...
Heat May Have Found A Giannis Fit They Didn't Expect
Simone Fontecchio has quietly given Miami a reason to pay attention this preseason. In the game against Brooklyn, the Heat wing put up 11 points in less than 14 minutes and knocked down 3 of 4 shots from deep, a useful reminder of why his floor-spacing profile matters. Last season, he connected on 37.5 percent of his three-pointers, and that kind of shooting is exactly the sort of skill set that can travel in a rotation built around a star who draws so much defensive attention.
For the Heat, the appeal is less about flash and more about fit. Fontecchio does not need the ball to matter, and if his outside shot holds, he could become the kind of depth piece that quietly makes lineups work better alongside Giannis Antetokounmpo. The preseason sample is still small, of course, but Miami has every reason to keep tracking whether this is a hot stretch or the start of something more reliable. [Read more 🡒]
Bam Adebayos Absence Puts Miamis New Frontcourt Plans On Edge
Bam Adebayo will sit out the Miami Heats final preseason game with a groin injury, staying back in Miami while the team heads to face the Orlando Magic. Its the latest missed chance for the Heat to see how their frontcourt is coming together, and it comes after Adebayo was already unavailable for previous preseason games as the staff continued sorting through rotations and options.
Erik Spoelstra has leaned on alternatives such as Nick Richards while Adebayo has been out, but the bigger question is still hanging over the start of the season. Adebayos status for the regular-season opener remains uncertain, leaving Miami to keep evaluating how it wants to piece together the front line if its anchor big man is not ready to go. [Read more 🡒]
Stan Van Gundy Just Reopened A Painful Bam Adebayo Debate
Stan Van Gundy has a way of getting Heat fans talking, and his latest stop on The Zach Lowe Show did exactly that by putting Bam Adebayo back in the middle of an old, familiar debate. The former Miami coach said he believes Adebayo is overrated offensively, a sharp critique of a player whose value has always been bigger than a box score and more complicated than simple scoring totals. It also fits into a broader conversation about how Miami builds around Bam under Erik Spoelstra, especially when the offense has to balance his versatility with the teams need for more punch.
Van Gundy did not stop with Adebayo, either, raising questions about Davion Mitchells fit as a point guard, Giannis Antetokounmpos durability, and whether the Heats newer three-point shooters can hold up defensively. For Miami, the interesting part is less the hot take itself than the way it touches on the same roster issues the team keeps having to solve: who initiates the offense, how much scoring Bam can realistically provide, and whether the surrounding pieces are sturdy enough to let him thrive without carrying everything at once. [Read more 🡒]