Mailbag: What will Delon Wright’s role be with Heat? And examining play-in tourney chances

The Miami Herald’s Heat mailbag is here to answer your questions. If you weren’t able to ask this time, send your questions for future mailbags via X (@Anthony_Chiang). You can also email them in to achiang@miamiherald.com.

@ItsFeiny: How does Delon Wright find minutes? Is he just J-Rich insurance?

Anthony Chiang: Wright represents depth. But when the roster is healthy, especially when the Heat’s top guards (Terry Rozier and Tyler Herro) are healthy, it may be hard for Wright to find consistent minutes.

Let’s go through the rotation: Bam Adebayo, Jimmy Butler, Caleb Martin, Duncan Robinson, Jaime Jaquez Jr., Kevin Love, Herro and Rozier have established themselves as the Heat’s eight must-play players.

If Heat coach Erik Spoelstra is going to use a nine-man rotation, that leaves just one more spot to fill. That decision will be between Josh Richardson, Haywood Highsmith, Nikola Jovic and Wright.

Of course, that’s only if the Heat’s full rotation is healthy, which is rare.

But even when the Heat is close to full health, Wright probably will get situational spot minutes as a defensive-minded guard who is a disruptive on-ball defender and among the NBA’s best at coming away with steals.

In Wright’s first game with the Heat after signing with Miami during the All-Star break, he received a DNP-CD (did not play, coach’s decision) in Friday’s win over the New Orleans Pelicans even with Rozier and Richardson out with injuries. Only time will tell how Wright’s role with the Heat evolves during the final few months of the season.

@catchflames: Do you see the Heat going through another play-in gauntlet this season?

Anthony: At this point, it seems like the Heat’s fate may come down to the final days of the regular season just like last season. But the Heat’s hope is, unlike last season, it can find a way to avoid the play-in tournament.

The Heat enters Monday in seventh place in the Eastern Conference, just one game behind the sixth-place Indiana Pacers, 1.5 games behind the fifth-place Philadelphia 76ers and 2.5 games behind the fourth-place New York Knicks. On the other end of the spectrum, the Heat is just percentage points ahead of the eighth-place Orlando Magic.

The play-in tournament, which is done during the week between the end of the regular season and the start of the playoffs, features the seventh-through-10th-place teams competing for the final two playoff seeds in each conference.

According to Basketball Reference’s playoff probabilities report, the Heat currently has just a 36.4 percent chance of finishing at No. 6 or better in the East to make the playoffs without needing to take part in the play-in tournament. That model has the Heat with essentially no chance to close as the No. 1 or No. 2 seeds, 1.9 percent for a No. 3 finish, 5.5 percent for No. 4, 11.2 percent for No. 5 and 17.6 percent for No. 6.

Basketball Reference’s modeling has the Heat’s most likely finish listed at 36.6 percent for eighth place in the East (and a spot in the play-in tournament) despite currently sitting in seventh place in the standings.

One thing that should definitely help the Heat is the fact that it has the sixth-easiest remaining schedule, according to Positive Residual, based on combined opponent winning percentage and rest advantage.

If the Heat can make a run and avoid the play-in, it can still realistically finish the regular season as high as fourth in the East.