10 Most Disappointing Players in Miami Heat History

Before the televised free agency announcements, the preseason celebrations and the multiple titles, the Miami Heat were a franchise that knew all about disappointment.

We're not going to relive Allan Houston's luckiest shots collections or Dwyane Wade's X-rays before Game 7 of the 2005 Eastern Conference Finals. Rather than relive the most disappointing moments, we're going to relive and rekindle former feelings of players who have donned the red and black and have disappointed us immensely. 

From humble beginnings to the recent stretch of dominance, disappointment in a Heat uniform has come in all shapes and sizes. Because even though the Heat front office looks genius now, there have been some questionable moves that will have you wondering just what Pat Riley was thinking at the time. 

Riley's seemingly untouchable because of the trio of titles he's brought to Miami, but some of the trades and draft picks that have been pulled off in the 25-year history of Heat basketball is perfect evidence of nobody being perfect.

Not even godfather's who attract the two best players in the NBA and an All-Star onto the same team. 

Despite only being 25 years old, the Heat franchise has had a meandering run that's featured extreme ups and downs, including winning a championship and then winning 15 games only two seasons later.

What it's provided us is a cornucopia of different lineups and offseason/midseason moves constantly being made, in order to keep the franchise always striving to win at any time. Rebuilding doesn't take long and the appeal of living in Miami has always attracted big-time free agents.

It's tough to say Shaq would have joined a second-year Dwyane Wade had he been playing in Milwaukee or New Orleans. Miami's the sexy choice for any veteran who wants to end their career. Just look at Ray Allen, Shane Battier and Rashard Lewis. 

I've provided too many names worth remembering in this intro, so start bracing yourself now for the most disappointing players in Heat history and get ready to see some names you repressed long ago. 

10. Erick Dampier

Consider Erick Dampier as a dinosaur to what the Miami Heat currently are in a modern-world drive by numbers analysis and stretch 4s and 5s. 

Dampier, whose previous claim to fame in Miami was being on the 2006 Mavericks that lost to the Heat, joined the team in late November on account of their glaring lack of an interior presence. Rather than thinking it through, the Heat decided to just plug that hole with a robust, immovable 35-year-old in Dampier.

In the regular season he wound up playing in 55 games, even starting in 22, before disappearing in the postseason.

And when I mean disappear, I mean flat-out disappear.

If you only looked at box scores and didn't see him sitting at the end of the bench, you would think he faded into oblivion. He went from consistent starter to benchwarmer only seen in a suit with no reason other than, "Let's try something else." 

Erick Dampier did not play a single minute of the 2011 postseason, despite having started in 22 consecutive games leading up to April 6th. Zydrunas Ilgauskas started the next game after Erick put up five points and two rebounds in 15 minutes the game before, and his Miami Heat career was over two days later. 

Dampier's Miami averages come out to a staggering 2.5 points and 3.5 rebounds. You look at Chris Andersen today and see how far the Heat have come from the days of having guys like Ilgauskas and Dampier lumber up and down the hardwood. 

The most headlines Dampier made in the playoffs was when he disrespected his franchise and partied with the Mavericks following their Game 6 NBA Finals series-clinching win in Miami. It's almost sad knowing Dampier was on the wrong team in both occasions the Heat and Mavericks played each other in the Finals.

His window for another title run has closed. He most recently played 15 games with the Atlanta Hawks in 2012 and has been out of a job since. 

9. Antoine Walker

All the shimmies in the world wouldn't convince me otherwise that Antoine Walker was a disappointment with the Heat.

We let Walker's milk dud head and dancing block our vision from what we were really seeing: a former All-Star that was out of his prime the second he signed with the Heat and realized he didn't have to be the primary scorer anymore. With no huge responsibilities, as he had in Boston, Walker just sat back, chucked shots, played his personal take on defense and somehow won a title. 

Even Shaq is in disbelief that 2006 team won a title. That's what happens when your entire rotation is made up of aging and aged veterans that were looking forward to a retirement in Miami. O'Neal, Walker, James Posey, Jason Williams, Shandon Anderson and Gary Payton all checked out soon after they won their title.

And by soon, I mean the exact second after they won. It's no surprise why the Heat were disgusting in the following two years; all of the veterans that won the title in '06 were either gone or didn't care, even less than they did before. 

Walker, challenged so well by Posey, led the forefront of this bringdown brigade. A year after he miraculously shot 44 percent overall and 36 percent from beyond the arc, he was attempting six threes per 36 minutes and showed just how much of a black hole he could be. 

He averaged a career-low 8.5 points, shot less than 40 percent from the field for only the third time in his career, shot 28 percent from beyond the arc (and that still wasn't the worst he shot from three) and brought down a career-low four boards per game. 

He also shot below 50 percent from the foul line. C'mon, this guy is not a shooter. 

That year he somehow shot worse than three? In the 1999-00 season, Walker attempted 285 three-pointers and made 73 of them. He took as many three-pointers as Jose Calderon did last year and made as few as Louis Williams did in only 39 games this past season. 

Walker played one more year in the NBA, spending it in Minnesota and shooting 36 percent overall and 32 percent from beyond the arc on 188 attempts. The words "shot-selection," never shot once through Walker's head. 

8. Jermaine O'Neal

Jermaine O'Neal spent one-and-a-half seasons with the Miami Heat and you know what every single Heat fan will tell you about him? 

"That guy was the absolute worst against the Boston Celtics."

There are few words to describe just how badly O'Neal performed in Miami's first-round series with the Celtics in 2010. But before we get into it, let's provide some background before we dismantle his entire career. 

Leading up to that fateful series, O'Neal wasn't half-bad when he joined the Heat as a 30-year-old. He came over in the deal that sent Shawn Marion to the Toronto Raptors for a blip of a second and brought Jamario 'What's a jump shot' Moon with him. He helped fill a need at center that could have easily been filled by Kevin Love, Roy Hibbert or Brook Lopez in the draft a year earlier. 

His first year featured the lowest numbers since the days he couldn't get off the bench in Portland, but they were respectable at 13 points and five rebounds per game. He'd average 13 points in Miami's lone series of the 2008 playoffs, but was pushed around by Atlanta's Al Horford and Josh Smith, and ended up averaging less than five boards. 

The 2009-10 season came around and O'Neal shot a career-high 53 percent from the field while averaging 14 points and seven rebounds. Miami won 47 games and earned a four seed that year, but was faced with the unfortunate task of playing a hot Boston Celtics team. 

That's when it all fell apart for Jermaine O'Neal, and any chance for the Heat to keep up with an actual team like the 2010 Boston Celtics. 

While Dwyane Wade was busy averaging 35 points on 55 percent shooting and kicking Boston's defense in the teeth, O'Neal was living off of an appetite of bath salts and computer duster. At least that's what it seemed like he was on throughout the series, and it's the only reasoning I have behind it and I'm sticking with it.

In five games, Jermaine put up 4.2 points and 5.6 rebounds per game. He shot less than 21 percent and was a combined 3-of-20 in Games 2, 3 and 4. He scored a grand total of six points in those games and missed all three of the free throws he attempted. He had as many turnovers as points in two of the games. 

His high for points in the series was eight; he didn't shoot a higher percentage than 33 percent in any game; and he attempted three shots in nearly 19 minutes in Game 4. 

Miami lost their first two games by a combined 38 points and saw the season essentially end the next game when Paul Pierce drilled a game-winner in Dorell Wright's face. 

O'Neal—Wouldn't you know it!—joined the Celtics the next year and played the Heat in the second round. He nearly accomplished the impossible of playing as bad as he did the year before, averaging six points and four rebounds in over 20 minutes per game. 

7. Ricky Davis

These were dark, dark times for the Miami Heat franchise.

Two years after winning a championship, the team was featuring Ricky Davis as a prominent player in the rotation. Despite the red flags that were implanted with him since the day he was drafted, Davis was brought in the trade that rid the Heat of Antoine Walker and Michael Doleac, former fixtures of the '06 title run.

Miami also sent a first-round pick that would later turn into Ty Lawson. The Heat were coming off as desperate to clean off the stench left behind by the oft-out-of-shape Walker.

Coming along with Davis was everybody's favorite stiff, Mark Blount, but one slide is enough to dedicate enough criticism towards one player.

As expected, the 2007-08 was an absolute trainwreck. Miami attempted to run an offense that featured Davis and Wade in the same starting lineup and it resulted in the Heat having a historically awful offense.

It would not come as a surprise at all if the 51 games Wade played came out of sheer exhaustion of having to play alongside guys like Ricky Davis.

Davis would play all 82 games and practically lead the offense once Wade committed himself to an asylum that would make him forget the year ever happened. Ricky, meanwhile, averaged 14 points on 43 percent shooting, almost lower than his three-point conversion rate of 41 percent on over four attempts per game.

Let that resonate. Ricky Davis shot as well as he ever had in his entire career from three, yet still ended the season with a paltry shooting percentage. It's the most Ricky Davis thing I've ever heard.

He'd sign as a free agent with the Los Angeles Clippers the following offseason, would play in 72 games over a two-year stretch and retire after averaging 14 minutes on a team that won 29 games.

6. Dexter Pittman

How bad do you have to be for your team to ask another team to take your contract and money just so they didn't have you involved in their franchise anymore?

That's essentially what happened to Dexter Pittman when the Heat traded him and cash to the Memphis Grizzlies for Ricky Sanchez, a player we'll probably never see play in the NBA. Miami got nothing out of the deal and had to give money to a powerhouse out West and it still feels like a huge win for the Heat simply because we don't have to hear anymore about Pittman and his stints in the D-League.

I wasted three hours of my life at an event at the American Airlines Arena that was partly a rally to keep Dwyane Wade in Miami and also to watch the draft. Three hours of my life were spent in an arena watching the Heat continue to trade higher and higher, as Eric Reid, Tony Fiorentino and Jason Jackson rambled on to 2,000 people, just to see them draft a brick wall. 

The second-round pick, drafted ahead of Landry Fields and Lance Stephenson, played two games in his rookie season with the Heat and spent the rest of the season either at the end of the bench or playing with the Sioux Falls SkyForce. 

We'd hear all the time about his progress and development, but consistently hear how he was averaging more fouls than you're allowed in the NBA. 

He'd get his big break, though. Pittman played 35 games in the 2011-12 season and averaged three points and two rebounds. He'd even start in six games, including a memorable Game 3 against the Indiana Pacers, and was able to rack up 24 personal fouls, despite playing in more than 20 minutes in only one of those contests.

Pittman dropped a career-high 16 points in 18 minutes against the Bobcats. 

He'd have the two most memorable moments of his NBA career in the Heat's series against the Pacers.

Without Bosh and in desperation after losing Game 2 at home, Miami started Pittman against the 7'2" Roy Hibbert. The results were exactly as entertained beforehand, with Dexter playing three-and-a-half minutes, missing the only two shots he took and fouling once. 

A few days later and the Heat are feeling a little more confident during a blowout against the Pacers in Game 5. This wasn't enough, however, as Pittman had to leave his miserable impact on the series by absolutely leveling the Pacers' 6'3" guard, Stephenson, who had performed a gesture directed at LeBron in Game 3. 

It wasn't enough that old man Howard had scolded the youngster before Game 4 and it wasn't enough that a two-man game by Miami won on the road and had annihilated Indiana in a basketball exhibition in Game 5. 

No, Dexter Pittman has to deliver a blatant cheap shot in the form of a forearm to the driving Stephenson's neck. He just has to, as if he's somehow Miami's resident tough guy and defender of his teammates. 

I realize Lance probably deserves any abuse that comes his way, but two wrongs don't make a right and it's something that shouldn't be in the cards for the Heat. Maybe if Pittman yelled "CHAUVINIST PIG" before hitting Stephenson, it would be chivalrous. But it was probably about Dexter wanting to make the highlight reel and delivering a hit because Lance gestured towards LeBron. 

Thankfully, the Heat wised up and traded him to Memphis before the trade deadline in 2013. Memphis, a team desperate for backup centers, played him seven games and waived him after two months, which is as long as the Heat should have kept him for. 

5. Mark Blount

If there's one player Heat fans detest more than Ricky Davis from the dark ages of basketball in Miami, it's Mark Blount.

Or maybe I'm just speaking on behalf of myself. Even though I would watch games through my fingers, since I could not truly fully watch an entire game of Heat basketball that 2007-08 campaign, it was clear and obvious just how awful Mark Blount was.

"A big man who can shoot? The next Dirk Nowitzki" is all I would hear following the signing, once again having to hear how every big man with decent range is suddenly a future Hall-of-Famer. But I could see right through Blount, who was neither a shooter nor a traditional center.

Blount was a desperate attempt at a hybrid. He was a true 7-footer that had formerly starred as the starting center for some truly deplorable Boston Celtic teams, before the "Big Three" joined up, and was coming off a "breakout" season with the Minnesota Timberwolves where he averaged a career-high 12.3 points.

That was more than enough to convince the Heat to give up a few aging veterans and a first-rounder for.

The Heat should have known that a 7-foot starter whose career-high in rebounds was 7.2 per was going to be useless from the start. It took them an entire season, and somehow 20 games of the 2008-09 season, before they finally traded him for a player that actually had value in Quentin Richardson.

Yeah, Mark Blount was so bad in a Heat uniform that we all embraced Q-Rich as a savior in comparison.

Blount started in 46 out of 69 games in the 15-win season, averaging 8.4 points and 3.8 rebounds. The Heat would come to their senses the following season, sending Blount to the bench and relegating him to garbage-time duty.

The Heat traded him back to the Wolves, the team he had a career year with only three years prior, and would never play again.

4. Brian Grant

I like Brian Grant. As much as it hurts to put him on this cavalcade of disappointment and degradation, he's earned every bit of it.

$86 million of it to be exact.

That's how much Grant, a 6'9" forward that Miami used at center, signed for when he joined the Heat in the summer of 2000. The deal was meant to last for seven years, it was given to a 28-year-old, and it was given to a player that was on the same team as future Hall-of-Famers in Alonzo Mourning and Tim Hardaway.

There were a number of obvious problems with this. For one, Grant was coming off an injury-plagued season where he missed 19 games and featured a significant regression in his stats, dropping to 7.3 points and 5.5 rebounds per. Secondly, he was not worth it to begin with, even in his best days with Sacramento.

Actually that second reason sums it up well. Grant was never worth $86 million. His best numbers came as a 23-year-old when he put up 14 and seven on a mediocre Kings team and had been plagued with injuries in just about every season since until he was traded to Miami five years later. 

With an increased role in Miami, on account of Mourning's ailment and absence, Grant powered to average the best numbers of his career with 15.2 points and 8.8 rebounds per. Miami won 50 games and was swept out of the first round by the Charlotte Hornets. 

It got pretty ugly from there for Miami until Dwyane Wade rose the team from the dead.

Grant's numbers hit a significant decline the previous season, would attempt to redeem himself by averaging ten and ten the next season, and finally end his Heat tenure on one of the funnest teams in franchise history led by a rookie Wade. 

Grant's shining moment with Miami came when the Los Angeles Lakers ate his contract after being desperate enough to get rid of Shaquille O'Neal. In 2006, they paid Grant $15 million to continue being retired. 

Fun Fact! Brian Grant was a part of the trade that sent Rajon Rondo from Phoenix to Boston. He never suited up for the Celtics and was paid $2 million. 

3. Harold Miner

Harold Miner was taken by the Miami Heat in the 1992 draft with the 12th pick in the draft. Before being drafted, Miner spent three years at USC and was coming off a junior year where he averaged 26 points and seven rebounds per. 

Great numbers for a 6'5" guard with out-of-the-gym athleticism and drawing vertical comparisons to Michael Jordan. He'd play all 73 games of his rookie season coming off the bench, playing as Miami's shooting guard, and would average ten points and two rebounds. 

Miner would earn some starts the following season, 31 to be exact, but hardly showed any signs of improvement and put up the same numbers he had posted the year before. He'd be utilized at point guard the next season, would shoot worse and score less, eventually to be traded to the Cleveland Cavaliers for a second-round pick.

Once again, the Heat are with a player that they can't give away. Miami gave Miner and a second-round pick away for a second-rounder that later turned into George Banks, who does not have a page on Basketball-reference. 

Miner played 19 games with Cleveland before being released prior to the start of the 1996-97 season. He averaged three points and less than a rebound and an assist per. 

If Miner didn't have the athleticism to win two dunk contests, we'd be talking about Miner as one of the worst draft picks ever. He played a total of 200 games in a four-year period and was out of the league by his second team.

The expansion Toronto Raptors even cut him in preseason. That's rock bottom. 

By drafting Miner, the Heat missed out on Latrell Sprewell, Doug Christie and Robert Horry.

Ironic enough, the Heat wound up with the top three players of this draft, Shaquille O'Neal, Alonzo Mourning and Christian Laettner, on the 2004-05 squad that went to the Eastern Conference Finals. 

2. Mike Bibby

My blood is boiling already.

The vein in my forehead is throbbing, my nails are digging into my hands and drawing blood, my teeth are gritting and my eyes are dilating; and I know every last fan of this Heat team is sharing similar feelings when they see or hear the name Mike Bibby.

Critics like to clown on LeBron James for his horrific 2010-11 NBA Finals, but it completely overshadows just how badly Mike Bibby, a 13-year veteran at the time, choked in the same series that is still primarily focused on the inability of James to penetrate the Dallas Mavericks defense.

LeBron has an excuse; the entire Mavericks defense was focused on him and performed an excellent job at forcing him into situations, such as posting-up, that he was not comfortable with.

Bibby, however, has no excuse. He was largely ignored throughout the series on offense, yet managed to shoot 29 percent on 17 three-point attempts in those Finals. For the entirety of the postseason, Bibby was a 28 percent shooter overall and a 26 percent shooter from beyond the arc.

He made five three-pointers against Dallas and four of those came in the Game 2 loss. He was a combined 1-of-12 from beyond the arc in Games 1, 3, 4 and 5. The Heat forced him to the bench in Game 6, throwing Mario Chalmers back in as the starter, and would use Eddie House as a spark off the bench.

If only the Heat figured this out sooner. It may not have ended up in a championship, but it would have at least given them a better chance to see a few more shots fall from shooters who could, well, shoot.

And the worst part of it was that Bibby was actually great in the regular season. He was signed in the middle of the season and shot 46 percent from three in 22 games. 

Like the all-around horrible person he is, Bibby would later play with the New York Knicks the next season and would remember how to shoot in their first-round series with the Heat, shooting 41 percent from beyond the arc in five games.

Seeing Wade toss Bibby's shoe and the ensuing fit Mike would throw as a result was enough retribution for the franchise after a failure of a postseason the year before.

1. Michael Beasley

Let's recap just who the Miami Heat missed out on when taking Michael Beasley with the number two pick in the stacked 2008 NBA draft:

O.J. Mayo, Russell Westbrook (Imagine a Westbrook-Wade backcourt), Kevin Love, Danilo Gallinari, Eric Gordon, Brook Lopez, Roy Hibbert, JaVale McGee, J.J. Hickson, Ryan Anderson, Serge Ibaka, Nicolas Batum, George Hill, DeAndre Jordan, Omer Asik, Goran Dragic, Luc Richard Mbah a Moute and Nikola Pekovic.

In a draft comprised of four future All-Stars and all-around talent throughout the first 35 picks, the Heat had to end up with the pot-smoking head case out of Kansas State that would eventually struggle to find minutes on teams like the sub-500 Minnesota Timberwolves and Phoenix Suns.

Those stints came after Beasley spent two seasons with the Heat, before being traded to the Wolves to clear cap room for the signings of LeBron James, Chris Bosh and role players that could consistently contribute.

Even at the time it was a questionable choice to draft Beasley. The Heat were coming off a 15-67 season and already had a starting power forward in Udonis Haslem. Instead of going after a point guard, as they would in the second round by selecting Mario Chalmers, or a center, since Shaquille O'Neal was long gone, the Heat took the next best available player after Derrick Rose and chose Beasley.

He would make the All-Rookie First team after averaging 13.9 points and 5.4 boards, while shooting 47 percent from the field and 41 percent from beyond the arc. There was obvious talent being withheld in Beasley. The only problem was how to unlock it and tap it on a consistent basis.

Beasley never made the sophomore jump as guys like Rose, Westbrook and Love would take. Instead, Michael continued to have questionable shot-selection, continued to fall asleep on defense and continued to have trouble playing off the ball.

His percentages dropped significantly, including the 41 percent three-point shooting dropping to 28 percent, and his game stats per 36 dropped as well. He had his flashes of brilliance, a 30-point game against Memphis, but they failed to outweigh the lowlights, two points on 10 shots and four turnovers against Toronto.

After his latest arrest for marijuana possession, NBA analysts are beginning to wonder if Beasley will ever find a home.

And, no, the Heat isn't looking to sign on anyone else at the veteran's minimum.