Heat’s Duncan Robinson on challenging postseason, why his motivation is at ‘all-time high’
Last offseason, Duncan Robinson signed a five-year contract worth $90 million with the Miami Heat. This offseason, Robinson is left wondering what his role with the Heat will be moving forward.
A lot has changed for Robinson, 28, in the last year, and much of that change has come in the past three months.
Robinson started 67 games this season before Max Strus replaced him in the starting lineup in late March with just two weeks left in the regular season. Robinson remained in the Heat’s rotation as a reserve immediately after the change but then completely fell out of the rotation in the second round of the playoffs before logging sporadic minutes off the bench in the Eastern Conference finals as Heat coach Erik Spoelstra chose to play two-way athletic wings such as Victor Oladipo and Caleb Martin over Robinson’s shooting.
“It does not matter if you’re playing JV basketball, if you’re playing middle school basketball, if you’re playing college basketball, if you’re playing in the NBA at the highest level. Not playing, it sucks in a lot of ways,” Robinson said during this week’s podcast episode of “The Long Shot with Duncan Robinson and Davis Reid” that was released Wednesday. “Especially when you feel that you’re capable and you feel that you can help win. It’s a really, really challenging feeling to combat, especially when you’re on the cusp and in the midst of a run where your team is playing really well.”
Robinson received his first DNP-CD (did not play, coach’s decision) since April 7, 2019 in Game 1 of the Heat’s second-round series against the Philadelphia 76ers. He finished the postseason with five DNP-CDs after not receiving one in the previous three years.
Before this late-season role change, Robinson had been a fixture in the Heat’s starting lineup since 2019 because of the spacing his elite three-point shooting provides for stars Bam Adebayo and Jimmy Butler. Robinson started 68 of his 73 regular-season appearances in 2019-20, all 72 of his regular-season appearances in 2020-21 and 67 games this past season.
“It’s a real challenge,” Robinson said on the episode of his diminished role this postseason. “What I tried to do, and not saying that I was always perfect in doing so, but I am proud in how I handled the quote-unquote adversity. Mind you, once again and I’ve said this before on this show, this is basketball adversity, which is all relative in the grand scheme of many things. So maintaining that perspective, first and foremost, I think is important.
“But then just also understanding that some of what’s happening to me is outside of my control and what I can control is how I respond to it, how I choose to embrace these challenges and how I choose to embrace them publicly in a team setting.”
Robinson pointed to the first two games of the Heat’s playoff run as the tone-setter for his unexpected postseason. He totaled 27 points and set a Heat playoff record with eight made threes in Game 1 of the first round against the Atlanta Hawks and then logged just 6:40 in the next game. A frustrated Robinson then went out and shot 1 of 4 from three-point range in 14 minutes off the bench in Game 3 of that series.
“The Game 1 to Game 2 dichotomy, for me personally, that also kind of set the tone for the rest of the playoffs, which was surprising to some extent from a personal standpoint, challenging as well,” Robinson said. “... I think that particular Game 1 to Game 2 shift in that series was something that I probably let bother me a little bit more than I should have. Because in Game 3, I think I got my like six-minute run in the first half. I think I missed a couple shots and didn’t play as well.
“I still think if like in Game 3 I came out and hit some shots, that’s why I’m not like here and eager to put the burden or responsibility on other people. I still think that if I had like handled my business and made shots and defended better than I did and know that I’m capable of [I would have played more].”
Another challenging situation for Robinson to endure came in Game 2 of the second round when he was called on to play the final 55 seconds of a 16-point win over the Philadelphia 76ers following a DNP-CD in Game 1.
Robinson said it reached a point of “guys checking in like, ‘Are you hurt? Is something the matter?’ when crossing paths with 76ers players in the second round.
“That was a moment where I couldn’t necessarily fully keep everything out,” Robinson said as he looked back to Game 2 of that second-round series, “because everyone was texting me like, ‘Hey, is everything OK? What’s going on?’ So at that moment, that was one where it wasn’t quite a hermetic seal. So in that sense, that was kind of like, ‘Whoa, this is where we’re at.’ Kind of like a reality check.”
Robinson, who went undrafted out of Michigan in 2018, earned his $90 million contract from the Heat with a historic two-year shooting stretch from 2019 to 2021. He shot an incredible 42.7 percent on 8.4 three-point attempts per game during this two-year span and set a Heat record for threes made (270) in a single season in 2019-20.
But Robinson made just 32.8 percent of his threes during his first 21 games this season. He was able to get back on track following a slow start to end this regular season shooting 37.2 percent on 7.9 three-point attempts per game, which was solid but not up to the high standards he set for himself after making more than 40 percent of his threes in each of the previous two seasons.
“He’s a specialist, and you can’t win in this league without having them,” Heat president Pat Riley said of Robinson this week during his season-ending news conference. “You got to have some specialists, guys who can rebound, block shots and guys that can make threes at the rate that he can make them.
“Defensively as a young player, even though he’s not as young as some of the other guys, he’s got to get better. Look, we hang our hat on that. ... To me, yes Duncan can improve. That message has been delivered to him many times.”
The biggest advantage of having Robinson in the starting lineup was that the Heat’s offense was simply better when he was on the court. But that wasn’t the case this season.
The Heat scored 2.9 more points per 100 possessions when Robinson wasn’t playing this regular season compared to when he was playing. That totally flipped from the previous two seasons, when the Heat scored 8.4 more points in 2019-20 and 4.3 more points in 2020-21 per 100 possessions when Robinson was on the court.
Robinson’s defense is also a target that opponents can take advantage of, with teams often hunting him on switches to test him on that end of the court. With some physical limitations at 6-7 and 215 pounds, Robinson allowed 1.24 points per possession in isolation situations (8th percentile in the NBA) this regular season.
All of those factors seemingly led to the Heat’s decision to replace Robinson in the starting lineup.
“I do feel like a good amount of the responsibility is on me to shore up areas, weaknesses that can be exposed in high-level competition,” Robinson said. “With that being said, I do still feel like my best version and what I’m capable of can absolutely contribute to winning at the highest level and winning a championship.”
Despite being under contract and currently sitting as the fourth-highest paid player on the roster, there’s a sense of uncertainty surrounding Robinson’s future with the Heat.
Will Robinson earn back his spot in the starting lineup? Will Robinson find his way back into the rotation? Will Robinson’s salary be used to help facilitate a trade this offseason?
Those are questions that still need to be answered, but Robinson is motivated to make sure he doesn’t fall out of the rotation again. He plans to spend most of the offseason in South Florida working on his body and mobility to improve as a defender and all-around player.
“I ultimately feel like the responsibility falls on myself to not be in that situation, not put myself in that situation that it has to be non-negotiable that I’m out there,” Robinson said.
“It’s one of those things I can’t dwell on but I can definitely not forget. I’m trying to shift my perspective that like now with the offseason, I have this incredible opportunity with this newly built-in packed-in motivation. Motivation, saying it’s an all-time high would probably be an understatement.”
This story was originally published June 8, 2022 at 10:20 AM.
