NBA playoffs 2022 – Miami Heat
IT WAS A night in early April, and the Miami Heat had just taken an 18-point lead with 1:36 to play against the Chicago Bulls. It was time to call it. Then, as coach Erik Spoelstra looked toward his bench, he called out a familiar name.
Udonis Haslem, now 41 and with scattered gray hair to prove it, stood up, walked to the scorer’s table and checked in.
Haslem, now in his 19th season, went undrafted in 2002 and played in France for a year before coming to the league with his hometown team.
When Haslem entered the game against the Bulls that night, he stepped on the court with four other players not drafted in the draft: Duncan Robinson, Haywood Highsmith, Omer Yurtseven and Gabe Vincent.
All teams use undrafted players, a reality in a league with 510 roster spots (including two-way contracts) and only 60 draftees per season. However, Miami became the fourth team in NBA history this season to use at least five undrafted players in at least 65 games, according to ESPN Stats & Information research. Of the four teams, the Heat are the only one with a winning record.
The Heat have perfected the art of winning with talent not selected in the draft, because they have to.
Pat Riley, Miami’s team president since 1995, has made a point of pursuing big names through trades and free agency during his tenure. The strategy has worked: championships in 2006, 2012 and 2013 back it up.
When he first arrived in Miami, he made trades for Alonzo Mourning and Tim Hardaway. Then came Eddie Jones and Brian Grant in 2000. And Lamar Odom in 2003. Odom and Grant were used in the deal to acquire Shaquille O’Neal in 2004. And then there was the decision to bring in LeBron James and Chris Bosh in 2010. In 2019, Riley brought in Jimmy Butler.
But those kinds of names often come with big salaries. It also often means that picks get moved. Since taking over, Riley has made just 14 first-round picks in 26 drafts, and three of those were traded in draft-night deals.
To do that, and be successful, Miami has to cash in on its signings of undrafted players.
“It’s a philosophy of our organization,” Spoelstra told ESPN. “We’ve done it for a number of years. We know what we’re looking for. We’re not for everybody, but we love to be dream makers.”
IT WAS SPRING 2018, and Chet Kammerer, a veteran member of the Heat’s player personnel department, was working with players for the upcoming NBA draft, one in which the Heat didn’t actually have any of their picks.
At a private workout in Los Angeles, he spotted a player who wasn’t on many draft boards, but felt he embodied what his team had so often found: an unheralded prospect, with a defined role, who could be a mainstay for years to come.
That player was Duncan Robinson, the former Division III transfer turned all-star at Michigan.
Kammerer reached out to one of the then-24-year-old’s representatives. “So, what’s the kid’s plan?” asked Kammerer.
“Uh, this is our first workout,” the rep replied. “We don’t have a plan.”
But Kammerer had an idea of his own. He turned to his phone and dialed.
“I just finished the best shooting workout I’ve ever seen,” he told Spoelstra.
The head coach excitedly asked who the promising young prospect was. Duncan Robinson, Kammerer told him.
“You mean the sixth man from Michigan?”, Spoelstra asked incredulously.
And that’s how the Heat set their sights on the 2017-18 Big Ten Sixth Man of the Year after his first professional workout.
After not being selected in the draft, Robinson signed up to be a part of Miami’s summer league team. Over seven games in the Sacramento and Las Vegas leagues, Robinson averaged 12.4 points, hitting an impressive 21-of-38 from beyond the arc.
That performance helped him earn a two-way contract with the Heat. From there, Robinson spent time with Miami’s G League team, the Sioux Falls Skyforce. By the time the 2019-20 season rolled around, Robinson had earned a starting spot.
Last summer, Robinson signed the largest contract in NBA history for an undrafted player: $90 million for five years.
Robinson’s story is a familiar one within the Miami franchise. Step 1: find a prospect. Step 2: give him a chance. Step 3: watch him succeed.
“We’ll give you the same opportunity we’ll give the first pick in the draft,” Haslem says. “You have to work hard. But we give everyone that confidence. We believe in leadership at every level.”
The Heat’s recipe for success is that simple. While not every player the Heat uncovers becomes a success story, the organization is consistent in its search criteria.
“People committed to the job and that process,” Spoelstra says. “Our coaching staff, most of them are products of our player development program. They do an exceptional job.”
Max Strus, meanwhile, says it all comes down to the team caring about individual players.
“They want to work with you and make you look great,” Strus says. “When you give your all to the culture and the job, they reward you for all the effort you put into it….. That’s really the biggest thing that separates the Heat from a lot of other organizations: how much they care and look to develop guys.”
Spoelstra says player development comes down to the work put in by veterans like Haslem.
“That’s really the most important thing. You can do all the work, but if your veterans aren’t really promoting and facilitating that, it’s really hard for the young guys in this league,” Spoelstra says. “Our veterans have been outstanding.”
And the greatest veteran of all leads that charge.
“The reason we’re able to make these guys work hard is that even before we talk to them about basketball, we let them know they’re part of the family and we want the best for them,” Haslem says.
“I understand that your career might not be here as long as you want it to be, but as long as you’re here, I’m going to invest in you so you can get the best out of your career no matter where you go.”
And they listen.
“As an undrafted guy, you come into this organization and wear this jersey, you don’t need to look past (Haslem),” Robinson says. “He loves the underdog. He loves guys with chips on their shoulders. That’s a perfect fit.”
ROBINSON WAS a starter in all but 16 games over the past three regular seasons for the Heat.
His role changed at the end of the 2021-22 regular season. Spoelstra benched Robinson and moved Strus, another undrafted player, into the starting lineup. With Strus as the starter, Miami had a 14-2 record.
“It’s a competitive environment,” Strus says. “It suits guys like us because we’re just trying to take advantage of every opportunity because you never know when you’re going to get one or if we’ll ever get one in the first place.”
Robinson didn’t miss a beat.
He scored 27 points in Miami’s 115-91 Game 1 victory over the Atlanta Hawks on Sunday, matching his best total during a regular-season game, and set a Heat playoff record with eight 3-pointers.
Miami’s undrafted players accumulated nearly 40% of their total points this season, second-best in the NBA. Robinson (10.9 points per game), Strus (10.6 PPJ), Caleb Martin (9.2 PPJ) and Gabe Vincent (8.7 PPJ) accounted for nearly 80% of those 3,595 points.
On Dec. 17, 2021, against Orlando Magic, Miami’s undrafted players totaled 83 points, the second most of any team this season. In fact, there were 14 instances of undrafted players scoring 70 points or more in a regular season game in 2021-22.
And they needed everyone, as Jimmy Butler, Kyle Lowry, Bam Adebayo and Tyler Herro missed 86 games combined.
Four of the top five in games played this season for the Heat were undrafted players – Robinson (79), Vincent (68), Strus (68) and Dewayne Dedmon (67). P.J. Tucker, a second-round pick in the 2006 draft, was second on that list with 71.
That record led the Heat to a 53-win season, the first 50-win season in South Beach since the Big Three’s final year in 2013-14, and a No. 1 seed.
“We don’t have the freedom that the draftees had,” Haslem says. “We don’t have the luxury of making the mistakes the recruits made. We don’t have the luxury of being lazy like the draftees. We don’t have the luxury of not knowing the plays that the draftees didn’t know. We don’t have the luxury of not playing hard like the recruits. We don’t have those luxuries when you don’t get picked in the draft.”
