The Minnesota Timberwolves know a thing or two about clunky roster construction, having had double-big lineups with Rudy Gobert and Karl-Anthony Towns before pivoting to a Gobert-Julius Randle frontcourt. Trying to build a fluid offense with two big men, especially ones who can't space the floor like Gobert and Randle, is a challenge.
Thankfully, the Timberwolves finally moved away from these odd frontcourt pairings by trading for LaMelo Ball this summer. However, the 3-6 Miami Heat are dealing with the same challenge. The Wolves opened up the season against the Heat, and after the game, head coach Chris Finch discussed how he believes it will take time for the Heat's new squad to mesh and the challenges of quickly integrating two big men.
“They’ll figure out how to play off each other really well, it just takes time," Finch said. "Trying to mesh bigs is a lot harder, having done it many times, than it is to mesh smalls, and a lot of that just has to do with spacing... But it’ll happen for them, and they’re going to be a handful.”
We'll have to see if they eventually become a handful to deal with, but for now, the Heat look pretty rough. Currently, they are 3-6, and the fit between Giannis Antetokounmpo and Bam Adebayo has been extremely clunky. Having two non-floor-spacing big men clogs the lanes up for everyone else, causing the offense to be stagnant. Frankly, the eye test feels worse than Miami's 17th-ranked offensive rating.
The Heat are going through frontcourt growing pains, just like the Timberwolves did
As noted, Finch and the Wolves know how challenging it is to run an offense with two big men. In the first 20 games, with the Randle-Gobert pairing, the Wolves were just 10-10. Ultimately, they figured things out and made a conference finals run as the No. 6 seed, but it wasn't pretty early in the season.
Likewise, when they traded for Gobert in 2022, they started the season with a 10-10 record and were 19-21 after four games. Things didn't come together for the Gobert-Towns frontcourt until the following season, but they eventually worked things out, as they made a conference finals run in 2024.
Now, just because the Wolves eventually righted the ship doesn't mean Miami will as well. The good news for the Heat is that their frontcourt is more talented than the Wolves' past frontcourt duos.
It's a double-edged sword, though. By having your two best players be frontcourt guys (and gutting your depth to trade for one of them), your perimeter creation is naturally at a disadvantage. As such, the Heat rely on Giannis and Bam to be creators even though that's not their forte. Plus, that's even harder to do since whoever doesn't have the ball isn't a good spacer.
Conversely, the Wolves had Anthony Edwards to bail them out when the offense got clunky.
And while the Wolves had some success with their odd frontcourt pairings, in the highest-leverage moments these pairings routinely caused issues for Minnesota's offense (particularly the Randle and Gobert duo). Thus, even if the Heat show improvement in the regular season, the flaws that the Bam and Giannis duo is showing right now could eventually come back to bite them.
In any event, the Heat are going through a rough patch early in the season, and clearly Finch was right that it's going to take time for this team.
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