Subbing out Martin for Love in starting lineup has left Heat at a net loss

Kevin Love made clear upon his arrival that his decision to join the Miami Heat on the NBA buyout market was not predicated on a starting role.

“Starting,” Love said last week, “it doesn’t really hold any weight for me.”

Two days after the 34-year-old veteran power forward offered those words, Love was in Erik Spoelstra’s starting lineup for his Heat debut last Friday.

A 1-3 record has followed, as has some of the Heat’s most uneven play of the season, losses that have come against the lottery-bound Charlotte Hornets, a Milwaukee Bucks team that had Giannis Antetokounmpo for only six minutes before he left due to injury, and a Philadelphia 76ers team that on Wednesday night at Miami-Dade Arena was lacking center Joel Embiid.

Following the loss to the 76ers, Spoelstra insisted, “All the answers that we want are in that locker room.”

But it is the order of operations that now may have to come under further scrutiny, as the Heat turn their attention to Friday night’s game against the New York Knicks, the second game of this six-game homestand.

With Caleb Martin in the Heat’s previous preferred starting lineup with Bam Adebayo, Jimmy Butler, Tyler Herro and Kyle Lowry, the Heat have a positive net rating of 2.7.

With this revised rotation that has injected Love into the starting mix, the Heat stand with a net rating of minus 14.9.

Granted, the Heat have not had Lowry available for any of Love’s appearances, with Gabe Vincent starting in place of the hobbled veteran.

But with a lineup of Adebayo, Martin, Butler, Herro and Vincent the Heat, in those 105 minutes this season, have a positive net rating of 18.6.

Based on what has gone south over the past week, it clearly has been about more than subbing out Martin in favor of Love.

But sometimes something new and shiny doesn’t always provide instant gratification.

In 2021, the Heat moved Trevor Ariza into their starting lineup in the fourth game after his March acquisition. That chemistry never clicked, with the Heat swept out of the first round by the Bucks in 2021.

But the year before, the Heat took a more deliberate approach with Jae Crowder after his midseason acquisition, starting him only once once in his first 13 appearances before making the switch into the starting lineup in the Disney World quarantine bubble. The Heat went to the NBA Finals that season.

What Adebayo said can’t be the case is tying the Feb. 20 additions of Love and veteran center Cody Zeller to the current malaise.

“I mean,” Adebayo said, “for what we need, they’ve been great assets. They come in with the right mindset. They come in willing to work. And they’re trying to figure out ways they can be better for us.”

Still, among the reasons Love was added was to provide 3-point spacing to the Heat’s anemic 3-point offense. Through his first four appearances, he is 5 of 21 from beyond the arc. Over that same span, Martin is 5 of 13.

For Love, it remains a learning curve.

“Me being here four games, just understand on any team we need to play for one another and sacrifice and just find out our brand and how we want to play, like, what our identity is,” he said. “But it’s there. Like, we have guys that are more than capable.

“We just need to get back to the drawing board and start winning games, plain and simple.”

With Martin as a starter, the Heat found themselves contending for a No. 5 seed. Now, it’s as if they’re attempting to protect No. 7.

“Overall just the consistency and sustainability of our offense, that’s what we have to get to,” Spoelstra said, “of getting to our strengths, being intentional, and doing it and over and over and over, regardless of the team, the scheme, the context, who’s in, who’s out. We’re capable of doing all of that at such a high level, we just need to have that consistency.”

And yet it is on the defensive end, while playing more of a show-and-recover approach with Love, that Adebayo said is where the adjustments have to come.

“I mean it’s been different, because we never had a big [man] really show,” he said of such stepping out without switching. “So it’s going to take some time. But for us, just everybody else has to be on a string. I feel like that’s where we get lost.”