With Herro held out Tuesday, Heat’s Nunn, Maten impress in summer debuts
While first-round pick Tyler Herro was held out of Tuesday’s summer league game, there were three other Heat players currently under standard NBA contracts who took the court.
Forwards Yante Maten and Duncan Robinson, and guard Kendrick Nunn played in the Heat’s 89-88 win over the Kings on Tuesday as part of the Sacramento summer league held at Golden 1 Center.
Miami rallied from a 15-point deficit to move to 2-0 in the California Classic.
Nunn was especially impressive, finishing with 27 points on 9-of-20 shooting, five rebounds and three assists in his summer league debut after sitting out Monday’s win over the Lakers. He scored 20 in the second half on 7-of-12 shooting from the field and 4-of-7 shooting on threes.
“That second half was the K-Nunn we know,” Heat summer league coach Eric Glass said. “He really settled us. He’s got the knack for the big moment. He’s not afraid. I felt totally comfortable with the ball in his hands that he was going to bring us home and he did.”
The Heat signed Nunn on the final day of the 2018-19 regular season. Nunn, 23, is on a partially guaranteed $1.4 million standard contract for 2019-20.
The 6-3 combo guard is known as a scorer. He averaged 19.3 points, 3.8 rebounds and 2.8 assists in 49 games while shooting 47.3 percent from the field and 33.3 percent from three-point range for the Santa Cruz Warriors, the Warriors’ G League affiliate, last season.
“He’s got a mid-range pull-up game that’s tough and he can shoot the three,” Glass said of Nunn. “He’s like a triple threat there. Now, he’s learning how to facilitate. As he gets more attention, he’s making all those passes that we saw. ... All that stuff goes in line. They wouldn’t have given him all that attention if he wasn’t such a scoring threat.
“He has the potential to be like a Lou Williams. I’m not saying he’s going to be the sixth man of the year. But that combo guard off the bench that can play off the ball, that can play on the ball.”
Nunn went undrafted out of Oakland University last year, but he was an elite scorer on the college level. He averaged 25.9 points as a redshirt senior, finishing as the runner-up to then-Oklahoma and now Hawks guard Trae Young for the NCAA scoring title in 2017-18.
Maten was also impressive with 21 points and nine rebounds. It marked the 22-year-old’s first summer league action of the year after he was held out of Monday’s opener.
The 6-8 forward is a candidate to make the Heat’s 15-man roster this upcoming season. He holds a partially guaranteed $1.4 million standard contract for 2019-20, with $100,00 already guaranteed.
Maten played under a two-way contract with the Heat for most of this past season, averaging 23.5 points on 53.9 percent shooting from the field and 32.7 percent shooting on threes and 9.6 rebounds for the G League’s Sioux Falls Skyforce.
Robinson is also a candidate to make the Heat’s 15-man roster. He’s on a partially guaranteed $1.4 million standard contract for 2019-20, with $250,000 already guaranteed.
Robinson, 25, followed up a 17-point performance Monday with 10 points on 3-of-13 shooting, six rebounds and six assists on Tuesday.
As one of the Heat’s two-way contract players this past season, Robinson averaged 21.4 points on 51.4 percent shooting from the field and 48.3 percent shooting on threes, 4.3 rebounds and three assists in 33 games for the Skyforce.
▪ Herro was held out of Tuesday’s game against the Kings after finishing his summer-league debut Monday with a team-high 18 points to go with three rebounds, and four assists. Herro is expected to play Wednesday.
▪ Charles Cooke, a 6-5 guard on the Heat’s summer league roster, entered the concussion protocol after suffering a head injury in the first half of Tuesday’s game. Cooke played three minutes against the Kings before exiting the contest.
▪ The Heat’s 2019 second-round pick, Stanford forward KZ Okpala, is not part of the team’s summer league roster yet because of NBA rules that prevent Miami from completing — or discussing — his draft-night acquisition until Saturday. The expectation is that he’ll play for the Heat’s summer league team at some point in Las Vegas once his acquisition is finalized.
▪ The Heat closes the Sacramento summer league Wednesday against the Warriors at 3 p.m. The game will be aired on NBA TV.
The Heat later joins the rest of the NBA in the Las Vegas summer league, which begins for Miami with a Friday matchup against the Chinese national team at 5:30 p.m. The game will be aired on ESPNU.
This story was originally published July 3, 2019 at 1:04 AM.
