How Does the Tyler Herro Injury News Affect Norman Powell?

The roles for the Miami Heat's top five guys on the roster were finally slotting right into place. Tyler Herro as the number one option, while the addition of Norman Powell takes some weight off his back on the perimeter. Andrew Wiggins finally bumps down into third or fourth option territory as a somewhat 3&D guy, and Bam Adebayo retains his usual offensive workload.

But that all changed early Friday morning when the news dropped that Herro would be undergoing surgery on his foot that would sideline him for some time.

That leads to an increased offensive role for Adebayo on the ball, Wiggins jumps back up to a second or third option that appeared uncomfortable at times last season, and well, Norman Powell now holds a ton of offensive weight on his shoulders.

It's nothing he isn't used to when it comes to him simply putting the ball in the basket. Powell is coming off a season where he averaged 21.8 points a night on 48% shooting, while shooting 42% from three.

But the reality of the situation from that extremely positive season: he was doing it balancing off the attention of James Harden and Kawhi Leonard back in LA. That blueprint was something the Heat were eyeing down to utilize in a week and a half in camp, since the two flame-throwers make it hard to scheme up against defensively.

Norman Powell keeps reiterating helping out Tyler Herro offensively:

“Play off-ball.”

“Make it easier for Tyler. He had a lot of attention on him.”

Says he wants to take the pressure off of him
— Brady Hawk (@BradyHawk305) July 9, 2025

In the two games that Powell played last season where James Harden didn't, he averaged 11.5 points and shot 6 for 29 from the field.

Yes, extremely small sample size, but there's no doubt the attention on him will be insanely higher now that teams won't be writing Tyler Herro's name on scouting reports.

So the next question becomes this: what does first option Norman Powell even look like? My first thought is you can't just heavily increase his on-ball reps out of nowhere. Doing that just gets Powell out of rhythm and away from his off the catch shooting pockets, leading to the low efficiency shooting numbers in the two games without Harden.

If anything, the usage that Miami will have to increase consists of the surrounding role players, much like the Heat did back when Bam Adebayo was injured during the 2022-2023 season as they increased the roles of PJ Tucker, Omer Yurtseven, and a few others.

The way to make this work is still letting Norman Powell be Norman Powell. Still prioritize his off the catch shooting ability and use his on-ball operation as his secondary tool. It's time for Spoelstra and Powell to cook up counters earlier than expected, beginning with next Tuesday at the start of Training Camp.

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