Miami entered the league as an expansion team in 1988 and spent its first several seasons as a fringe playoff club before Pat Riley arrived as coach and team president in 1995, bringing a demanding culture and acquiring veterans Alonzo Mourning and Tim Hardaway to build a consistent Eastern Conference contender through the late 1990s. The drafting of Dwyane Wade in 2003 and a subsequent trade for Shaquille O'Neal gave Miami its first true championship contender, and with Riley back on the bench and Wade winning Finals MVP, the Heat won the franchise's first title in 2006 before injuries and O'Neal's decline led to a rebuilding stretch, including a league-worst 15-win season in 2007-08.

Miami's fortunes turned again when the team signed LeBron James and Chris Bosh in 2010 to join Wade, forming a "Big Three" that reached four consecutive NBA Finals and won back-to-back championships in 2012 and 2013. James's 2014 departure sent the franchise into a retooling period, but a disciplined, Riley-built culture under coach Erik Spoelstra kept producing contenders, most notably a run to the 2020 Finals inside the pandemic "bubble" and an improbable path from the play-in tournament to the 2023 Finals, both built around Jimmy Butler and homegrown talents Bam Adebayo and Tyler Herro. Butler was traded away in early 2025, and the team entered a new transitional phase afterward.