New two-way rule creates interesting decision for Heat. And Strus/Robinson confusion
A six-pack of Miami Heat notes on a Monday:
▪ The NBA’s decision on Sunday to allow players on two-way contracts to be available for every regular-season game was welcomed news for the Heat, because it gives Miami the opportunity to keep Caleb Martin on a two-way deal for most or all of this season if it chooses.
Under the rules in place until Monday, players on two-way deals could be available for only 50 of a team’s 82 games.
But with the Heat seemingly determined to avoid the luxury tax, the new NBA two-way rule also creates an interesting decision for Miami in the months ahead.
The NBA’s ruling on Sunday means the Heat could keep Martin on a two-way deal and have enough space under the tax line to sign another player in early March to a minimum deal --- if there’s an appealing veteran bought out. The regular-season ends April 10.
But here’s the catch: If Martin stays on a two-way contract, then he wouldn’t be eligible for the playoffs unless the NBA changes the rule. (To this point, the NBA has not changed that rule; players on two-way contracts aren’t eligible for postseason.)
So if the Heat wants Martin available for the playoffs, it still would need to convert his two-way deal into a standard contract before the regular season ends, which would give Miami the maximum 15 players on standard deals.
And doing that would greatly reduce the chance of the Heat being able to add a veteran in the buyout market, because signing a free agent - combined with converting Martin to a standard deal - would leave the Heat with 16 players on standard deals (one over the NBA limit) and require trading or cutting another player.
And that machination likely would leave Miami over the tax line. If a very appealing veteran becomes available in the buyout market, one of the narrow paths available for the Heat to sign that player - and convert Martin to a standard deal, which would make him playoff eligible - would be trading KZ Okpala for nothing but a future draft pick.
So if a very good player becomes available via buyout, this could become a Heat playoff choice between that player and Martin.
If Martin continues playing at this level, the Heat likely would want him available for the playoffs. He was averaging 7.7 points, shooting 37.7 percent on threes and defending at a high level before being sidelined recently due to the NBA’s health and safety protocols.
The Heat entered the week less than $200,000 below the tax line. A team must pay a tax only if it’s above the tax line at the end of the season.
If the Heat needs to sign a player as a COVID replacement, it would not affect Miami’s luxury tax status. The NBA said Sunday night that teams will be allowed to sign a replacement player to a 10-day contract for each positive COVID case it has on its roster. These replacement players won’t count toward a team’s salary cap or potential luxury tax payment.
▪ Max Strus’ profile has risen with his recent strong play, including 32- and 24-point outbursts in the Heat’s past two games.
Strus said that when they’re in public, he, Tyler Herro and Robinson “all get mixed up a bunch. I’m called Duncan more [than Herro]. Which I don’t get how. But whatever. That has happened” several times.
Have you gone along with it when someone calls you Duncan Robinson?
“Yes, just to keep it moving,” Strus said.
▪ Herro said he has enjoyed being a sixth man this season - and will accept whatever role he’s given - but makes clear that he wants to start eventually.
“Obviously, I love to start,” Herro said before missing the past three games with a quadriceps injury.
“That’s what I want to be in this league, a starter. I’m still young, third year, so coming off the bench right now isn’t bad. But yeah, I want to be starting. But being the sixth man is what it is right now.”
How good can Herro be?
“He’s still developing and figuring it out,” Heat forward P.J. Tucker said. “He can score with the best of them, playing iso, playing pick and roll. He can do it at all. Now he’s going to start developing being able to take over games not only just scoring but drawing attention, making plays, making everyone else better. I’m excited to see his progression.”
▪ Herro has studied other sixth men. “I talked to Lou Williams a little bit,” he said of one of the best sixth men of the modern era. “He’s one of the guys that come to mind when you think of sixth men. If have a relationship with him. If I need to, I can pick his brain. He’s a great, great player.
“I’ve studied Kobe [Bryant] a little bit when he was coming off the bench early in his career. Just different ways to affect the game whether it’s coming in and scoring right away or trying to make plays for your teammates.”
▪ With the Heat awaiting word on Tucker’s knee injury, keep in mind that even beyond his impressive defensive work, he’s putting together his best offensive season in several years.
Tucker’s 45.5 percent accuracy on three-pointers is well above his career 36.3 mark and would be his best percentage ever. His 7.9 points per game is well above his 3.7 average for Houston and Milwaukee last season.
Tucker’s field goal attempts per game have risen from 2.3 with Milwaukee to close last season to 6.0 with the Heat. His three-point attempts have risen from 1.7 to 2.8.
Has Erik Spoelstra encouraged him to shoot threes throughout the season?
“Spo doesn’t have to encourage me,” Tucker said. “Being in Houston for so long that’s what we did, second nature. It’s more than that here because I get to playmaker, do a lot more stuff, screening, handling. That’s how our system works. So much more freedom, you can show a complete game.”
He has diversified his offensive game. One example: He already has made 24 floaters, according to NBA tracking stats, compared with five all of last season.
▪ The Heat is the second-most popular team in the world behind only the Golden State Warriors, according to a study released on Monday by bookies.com, which used metrics on Google searches worldwide.
Using Google searches as a gauge, the Heat was determined to be the most popular team in 16 nations, including Portugal, Brazil and Saudi Arabia.
NBA teams finished in the top 15 spots in the study. The Dallas Cowboys were the highest-ranked NFL team at No. 16.
To collect the data, each team from the NFL, NBA, NHL, MLB and MLS was ran through Ahrefs Keyword Explorer. This was done to see an estimation of the average monthly number of searches each team receives on Google. Using the country filter, data was collected from 155 countries.
This story was originally published December 20, 2021 at 3:43 PM.
