One Analyst Thinks The Miami Heat "Sucks" For Underutilizing Norman Powell Vs. The Spurs

On Monday, the Miami Heat suffered one of the worst losses of their 2025-26 campaign when they fell 136-111 to the San Antonio Spurs. There’s plenty to dissect in this 25-point setback, and sure enough, one analyst has criticized the Heat for the way they supposedly underutilized a vital cog of their offense.

Indeed, “criticized” might be too soft a word to describe Rick Kamla’s tweet. Kamla, one of the biggest names in fantasy sports, bluntly slammed the Heat after seeing Norman Powell’s lack of playing time against the Spurs.

“The #Heat suck for bringing Norman Powell off the bench,” Kamla tweeted. “Last month, he was an All-Star. Tonight, he is playing garbage time in a 30-point blowout. Not cool.”

Kamla sounds outraged, but his criticism of the Heat warrants a closer look. While Powell did spend minutes in garbage time on Monday, he was already seeing action when the outcome was far from decided, checking in for the first time at the 5:35 mark of the first quarter. The 11-year veteran, in fact, spent the most time on the floor out of any Heat player in this game, logging 30 minutes compared to Bam Adebayo’s 29 and Tyler Herro’s 26.

Powell has reached All-Star status this season, but that doesn’t make him bulletproof in Heat coach Erik Spoelstra’s scheme. Spoelstra, as a matter of fact, has been scrambling to find ways to snap the Heat’s current skid. Heading into the matchup against the Spurs, Miami had lost four consecutive outings, so Spoelstra can hardly be blamed for making lineup tweaks like moving Powell to the bench.

As a matter of fact, the starting five deployed by Spo (Tyler Herro, Davion Mitchell, Pelle Larsson, Andrew Wiggins, Bam Adebayo) was one that jumpstarted a seven-game winning streak earlier this month. This streak also happens to coincide with a stretch of missed games for Powell due to injury.

So, does the Heat “suck” for the way they handled Powell’s playing time? That’s a matter of subjective opinion, but there’s reason to think that the team’s decisions concerning their first-time All-Star were intelligently made.