1988–89 Miami Heat season

The 1988–89 Miami Heat season was the first season for the Miami Heat in the National Basketball Association. The Heat were the first of two expansion teams to play in the state of Florida over a two-year period, and along with the Charlotte Hornets, joined the NBA during the 1988–89 season. The team revealed a new primary logo of a red basketball on fire going through a hoop, and got new uniforms adding red and black to their color scheme. The Heat played their home games at the Miami Arena in Miami, Florida.

In the 1988 NBA expansion draft, the Heat selected veteran players like Billy Thompson, Fred Roberts, Jon Sundvold, Darnell Valentine, Dwayne "Pearl" Washington and Scott Hastings. However, Roberts was traded to the Milwaukee Bucks, and Valentine was dealt to the Cleveland Cavaliers. The team also signed free agents Pat Cummings and Rory Sparrow during the off-season. The Heat received the ninth overall pick in the 1988 NBA draft, and selected center Rony Seikaly out of Syracuse University, and also selected shooting guard Kevin Edwards out of DePaul University with the 20th overall pick. Other rookies on the team included second-round draft picks, power forward Grant Long out of Eastern Michigan University, and small forward Sylvester Gray from the University of Memphis. The team hired Ron Rothstein as their first ever head coach.

The Heat made their NBA regular season debut on November 5, 1988, in which the team lost to the Los Angeles Clippers by a score of 111–91 at the Miami Arena. Sparrow made the first basket in the team's franchise history, while Washington led the Heat with 16 points and 3 steals off the bench. The Heat struggled posting a dreadful 17-game losing streak to start their inaugural season, which was an NBA record for the worst start to the season at the time; the team had a winless month in November, losing all twelve of their games during that month. On December 14, the Heat won their first ever game of the season and in franchise history, defeating the Clippers on the road by a score of 89–88 at the Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena; Long, Thompson and Cummings all led the team with 15 points each. Five games later on December 23, the Heat won their first ever home game at the Miami Arena, defeating the Utah Jazz by a score of 101–80; Sparrow led the team with 19 points, while Edwards finished with 18 points and 8 assists, and Cummings contributed 17 points.

The Heat struggled all season long, posting a 10-game losing streak between December and January, then posting a seven-game losing streak between January and February, and holding a dreadful 5–40 record at the All-Star break. The team posted a six-game losing streak between February and March, and posted another seven-game losing streak in April, losing 12 of their final 14 games of the season. The Heat finished their inaugural season in last place in the Midwest Division with a record of 15 wins and 67 losses, which was the league's worst record during the regular season.

Edwards led the Heat in scoring averaging a low team-high of 13.8 points, and contributed 4.4 assists and 1.8 steals per game, and was also named to the NBA All-Rookie Second Team, while Sparrow averaged 12.5 points, 5.4 assists and 1.3 steals per game, and Long provided the team with 11.9 points, 6.7 rebounds and 1.5 steals per game. In addition, Seikaly averaged 10.9 points and 7.0 rebounds per game, while Thompson provided with 10.8 points and 7.2 rebounds per game, and Sundvold contributed 10.4 points per game off the bench, while shooting .522 in three-point field-goal percentage. Meanwhile, Cummings averaged 8.8 points and 5.3 rebounds per game, Gray provided with 8.0 points and 5.2 rebounds per game, Washington contributed 7.6 points and 4.2 assists per game, and Hastings averaged 5.1 points and 3.1 rebounds per game.

During the NBA All-Star weekend at the Houston Astrodome in Houston, Texas, Sundvold participated in the NBA Three-Point Shootout; Sundvold was selected as a replacement for Trent Tucker of the New York Knicks, as Tucker withdrew due to an illness in his family. The Heat finished twelfth in the NBA in home-game attendance, with an attendance of 612,754 at the Miami Arena during the regular season. Following the season, Hastings signed as a free agent with the Detroit Pistons, and Gray and Washington were both released to free agency.

Despite their location in Miami, the NBA placed the Heat in the Midwest Division of the Western Conference; this meant that the Heat were forced on some of the longest, and farthest road trips in the NBA during the 1988–89 season, as their closest divisional opponent was the Houston Rockets, which were located over 950 miles away in the city of Houston.

The team's new primary logo, and new uniforms would both remain in use until 1999.