Eric Glass

Couper Moorhead

I'm going down an elevator to a new stage of life. Nurses just told me that it's time to take my newborn daughter home. Great, I think, before my mind floods with all the things I could possibly mess up over the next forever. Let's just get through the car seat test.

As the elevator doors open, I run into a couple waiting to board. Sorry, I say, as I continue on. Then someone says my name. I look up and immediately recognize two of my co-workers. They're alone.

They tell me a story. They're going to the same floor I just came from. It wasn't their first time.

Five minutes later I, dumbstruck, am no longer thinking about proper use of turn signals. I collect the car seat and return to the hospital room where my wife and mother-in-law wait with my daughter. I tell them the couple's story, and all three of us cry. At the time, I couldn't remember crying in front of my mother-in-law before. When the moment passes, the stress of driving my daughter home has vanished, replaced by calm and guilt.

Sometime later, the couple tells their story again. They want people to know, because there was so much that they didn't.

Two years ago, the Miami HEAT were rolling. In the middle of a six-game winning streak, the team had followed up a one-point win in Toronto, off a Wayne Ellington buzzer-beater, with a rare eight-point victory at Indiana. The playoffs were in sight and though nobody knew it yet, the team was just a few weeks away from reacquiring franchise legend Dwyane Wade.

Just another season in the NBA, but behind the scenes things were about to take a turn nobody would have ever expected, much less planned for.

Eric Glass coaching the HEAT’s 2019 Summer League team

As is customary following a road game in another state, the HEAT's plane didn't arrive in Miami until the early hours of January 11. Eric Glass, now the head coach of the affiliate Sioux Falls Skyforce but then carrying the robust title of Video Coordinator/Player Development Coach, took his usual route back home to Coconut Grove and around 3 AM settled in next to his wife, Ana, who was pregnant with twins.

A few hours later, Ana woke Eric up. Something didn't feel right.

When you're expecting twins, you get monitored a little more closely than usual. With their due date still four months away, Eric and Ana were well into the routine of getting an ultrasound every two weeks, at minimum. The procedure was old hat. They knew what to look for.

Despite the inauspicious start, that particular morning began like many others. Ana called and left a message at her doctor's office, then she drove to AmericanAirlines Arena. When Ana received the return call, Eric was on the practice court working out a player. Go to the hospital, the doctor said. Now.

Upon arrival at South Miami Hospital they moved to a room for yet another ultrasound. Another one of many, was the hope. But as the technician wordlessly moved the probe around, they both saw the difference. 'You saw her face, right?' Ana asked once they were alone. 'There's something wrong, there's something off.' For the next five minutes, they searched. She was probably going to have to be on bedrest for a while, Ana thought. They had always told her that was a possibility. Eric offered comfort as best he could, but his face betrayed him.

"You're kind of holding out faith that it wasn't that," he said. "You didn't want to admit it to each other. I pretty much knew. I didn't want to say anything. I was hoping that it wasn't that, that I didn't know what I was talking about, but it didn't work out that way."

When the doctor returned, she confirmed their feelings. There was only one heartbeat. One of their children would be stillborn. Odds were nine in ten that their other son could come in the next day or two. Eric and Ana held out hope that days would become weeks or months, with chances of survival exponentially higher protected from the world in utero. Eric went back to their home and brought their tv into the hospital so they could watch Netflix. He brought in plants, fresh clothes and a pillow topper for the bed. As much as it could be, their room became recognizable as something within shouting distance of normal. They focused their energies on the son that still had a chance. They focused their energies on each other.

A calendar hung on the wall. A vision board to help focus on extending the pregnancy. Every day crossed off was a good day. On the last one they marked, Eric and Ana had been watching the Margot Robbie-starring I Tonya when Ana asked if they could press pause for a minute. They never hit play.

Twenty three weeks and 0 days into the pregnancy, Ana was admitted into the hospital. Six days of labor later, Cash Glass was born at 1 pound and 7 ounces. Kicking and screaming.

January 11, 2018: Eric and Ana are admitted to the hospital

Eric Glass didn't always want to be a coach until he always wanted to be a coach. His senior year of high school in Newport Beach, he volunteered to coach a youth flag football team. He got so sucked in to the job he sent friends out to film games of competing teams so he could review the VHS tapes at home. This led him to helping out with basketball teams, and he found his career path. He knew he was a talented enough player to catch on with a Junior College team, but that was a dead end. The goal was coaching, wherever that took him.

After earning his Masters in kinesiology at Cal State Fullerton, where he was a men's basketball graduate assistant, and catching on with UC Irvine as a video coordinator, another coach who happened to know some HEAT staffers recommended that Eric send in his resume for an internship. As it turned out, Eric had a number of random connections to the HEAT and only the HEAT – 'dumb luck' he calls it.

"On my first day, [Erik Spoelstra] told me, 'We don't know if you're any good, but if we had one more person calling about you, we were going to lose our minds,'" Glass said.

Ana moved to Miami from Ecuador with her mom and her sister when she was nine years old. She taught herself English with a dictionary and copies of The Babysitter's Club in her school library. After graduating from Florida State University, Ana joined the Heat's Premium Services Department as a part-timer. Thirteen years later, she's the Director of the department.

Before he got the job, Eric had to interview. Everyone waiting for an interview waits at the AmericanAirlines Arena reception area. While sitting there for a couple of hours in June of 2010 – he got there early – Ana walked by. 'Wow,' he thought, 'Who is that?'

Eric made a mental note that day to introduce himself. Months later, he spotted her eating popcorn in the back hallways of the arena before a game. I need to know who this is, he remembers thinking. So, Eric walked up, said hello, and introduced himself. When Ana extended the box of popcorn, offering him some of her snack, he promptly refused, mumbling something about staying in good shape.

"She probably thought I was weird," he says.

"Yes. I did," Ana says. "I just said, ok, more popcorn for me…"

The awkwardness worked as an icebreaker, however, and they struck up a friendship. A few years later, after a couple of HEAT championships, they started dating. If you took out all the walls in the arena they could shout to each other from their desks, but they almost never bumped into one another at work. Same workplace, they never had to navigate the pitfalls of an inter-office relationship. In 2016, they married.

Soon after, as it does for many couples, the topic of children came up. Ana knew what she was getting into marrying a coach. He travels, and the work is both time and life-consuming. They make the most of the time they have when he's around.

They tried to plan for an offseason baby so they could have plenty of time to spend together. That didn't work out, but soon they would have more time together than they had ever had before.

Three days after Cash was born, Eric and Ana are in a room together, alone.

Cash had been whisked away into the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at South Miami Hospital, a world neither of them knew much of anything about, moments after birth. The Glasses had been told, ad nauseam, that the NICU was like a rollercoaster. Neither of them had thought much of it during the first two days. Every dour statistic about Cash's chances had come their way to the point where they didn't want to hear them anymore, but 30 percent was 30 percent, and that was before considering significant developmental issues. Their son's first two days on earth had gone as well as they could have hoped for.

Today, they understood what everyone meant. Yesterday the hospital had told them to go home and get some rest. Parents need sleep, too, and there's only so much you can get curled up in hospital furniture. While they were eating breakfast together this morning, the phone rang. The hospital usually waited to deliver good news in person.

The doctors had told the Glasses that due to the risk of bleeding in the brain, they didn't want to touch Cash until three days had passed. When they couldn't get a feeding tube to stay it was discovered that Cash's esophagus and stomach weren't connected. Corrective surgery would eventually be necessary once his body had a chance to mature. But on the morning of January 20, Cash's stomach was expanding rapidly. It was getting air from his lungs. Surgery was happening today.

In the room where they wait, neither has much to say. Eric, as private an individual as you'll come across, sits writing a journal entry on his phone. With nothing to do but wait, his thoughts wander the dark places of his mind. Is this it? Is he going to make it? Ana is on her phone, too, but she scours the internet, searching medical terms like tracheoesophageal fistula, searching for stories that might give her hope. They want to reassure each other, but neither can offer certainty. Only hope. They're sitting in a hospital room as sterile as any other, they've already lost one son and the second is fighting for his life.

"Other people at that point are trying to make you feel better, but really there's nothing anyone can say to make you feel better," Ana says. "You're just trying to get through the day."

There was one person. Jewel Smith, wife of NBA player JR Smith, had recently brought her daughter home after she was born five months premature. HEAT assistant coach Juwan Howard had played with JR years before in Denver, so he offered to put the two families in touch. Eric declined, but Ana sends a text. That same day, she and Jewel spoke on the phone for two hours.

Ana is in the room searching for stories not only for hope but for relief of the feeling she hadn't been able to shake: guilt.

"As a woman, I felt like not being able to have a full-term pregnancy made me a failure." Ana says. "You wonder what could I have done different."

Jewel Smith is the only person Ana reaches out to during surgery, because Smith made her feel normal. Your son is in that room, you're in this room, and it's not your fault. "It's just biology", Ana says.

With the minutes crawling by, Eric and Ana hear a knock on their door. When they see who it is, hearts sink.

'Oh my god,' Ana thinks, losing her breath. 'They sent the priest.'

False alarm. The priest had just heard about what was happening and sought them out to offer support. Breathe. For three hours nobody else would join them, per their request. The next person they saw was the surgeon, red and sweating and pregnant herself.

All three, doctor included, begin to cry, but not before they got a few smiles in. As the surgery ended, Cash had punctuated the event by peeing all over the surgeon. The shroud of darkness was lifted.

"I'm not very religious, but something in my body told me that after he got through that surgery, he was going to make it," Eric said.

The next day, Eric and Ana hold their son's hand for the first time.

January 21, 2018: Eric holds his son’s hand for the first time

Surgery was a blessing. During the surgery the doctors found that Cash's stomach had inflated so much it had perforated. Had they waited on the surgery, even another couple of hours, he might not have made it. Timing made all the difference. Now Cash had a feeding tube and while a sense of security was far too much to ask for – the TE Fistula Artresia was such a rare birth defect, and coupled with severe prematurity the hospital had trouble calculating a new survival rate – the Glasses could at least try and settle in for the haul. South Miami Hospital was to become their second home.

While doing their best to make the room feel like any child's room should feel, full of books and photos and aided by the small revelation that they could buy and bring in their own bed sheets and eventually clothes for Cash, the machines were always there. Oxygen monitors. Heart monitors. Every sound meant something different, but the sounds determine what are Good Days and Bad Days. "You can't even imagine how those machines make or break your day," Eric says.

It's not until Day 26 that Ana gets to first hold Cash. With all the machines the simple act of picking up a baby takes a team of nurses to keep all the wires and connections in line. Eric, left to watch due to the sheer complexity of it all, grits his teeth with jealousy as he takes photos. Ana texts those pictures to some close friends and a day later one of those photos arrives on a canvas frame. It's from Jewel Smith.

"She understood the importance of holding your baby for the first time," Ana says. "Other people were excited for me, but she understood looking at your child through plastic for a month before you could hold him."

February 12, 2018: Ana does kangaroo care for the first time

Nurses, especially primaries like Dayami Fajardo and Jenessa Alvarez, were the first line of defense, there for the babies when the parents were away, and there for the parents in their worst moments. This is a positive space, Fajardo would tell them. "No negative, no crying around the baby. All that, you leave outside my doors." Babies sense all of it.

Within a week of Cash's birth, Heat coach Erik Spoelstra, a true believer in the power of group energy, passed out rubber wristbands with Cash's name printed on them to every HEAT player and staffer. That same week Spoelstra would visit, and he had no idea what to do.

"I was walking on eggshells. I didn't want to sit on the chair, I didn't want to breathe," says Spoelstra, who was at the time expecting his first child.

"Aww, come on," Eric says, urging Spoelstra to put on the gloves and hold Cash's hand.

Their son may have been about the size of a fist and the machines may have been beeping, but the Glasses did everything they could to normalize the environment. The next time Spoelstra visited, along with assistant coach Chris Quinn, he entered the room clapping his hands, fired up, telling Cash how he was going to beat the odds.

"Mommy got mad at me for over stimulating you," Eric writes in their NICU journal. "But come on mom, boys will be boys. We are just having fun!"

The nomenclature that makes up the foundation of HEAT Culture permeated the experience. Eric was a coach, after all, and he practiced his boss' preaching. The goal was one percent better every day. Eric would staple a For Competitors Only T-Shirt where Cash could see it.  When Rodney McGruder visits he tells Cash, 'he looks tough as shit.' Okaro White was traded right as he planned to visit, but as soon as the All-Star Break hits he returns to Miami to see Cash. The HEAT's player development program had never had a younger indoctrinate.

Support is felt in many ways. Assistant coach Dan Craig calls regularly asking for their takeout dinner orders. Bam Adebayo writes Cash's name on his sneakers. Flowers filled the Glasses house. HEAT General Manager Andy Elisburg tries to visit, twice, and both times the Glasses have to call and tell him to turn around because Cash was having a bad day. Not every family has people on the way.

A few days after members of the team start visiting, Eric and Ana visit a funeral home. Following the birth Eric held Cash's brother, Dylan, and shared a few moments with him. But with Ana under the effects of heavy anesthesia she wasn't able to do the same. Everything happened so quickly, she was never afforded time to grieve. They handle Dylan's arrangements, and take the time.

Around the same time, Eric wanted to rejoin the team. Spoelstra resisted, telling Eric to take all the time he needed, but they worked out a plan that would keep Eric from long road trips. Cash was getting strong enough that he didn't need his parents watching him all day, every day. Hospital staff, including many not assigned to Cash, would often stop in just to say hello and check in. But every morning Eric and Ana would get their coffee and see their son, and every day they would return after work, possibly for a third time after dinner. Everyone knew them. The workers at Starbucks. At the cafeteria. If Eric flew with the team and didn't get in until after midnight, he would stop in before going home. Every night, they read to him.

April 5, 2018: Cash goes through physical therapy

Some days were good. Visits from family and friends. Kangaroo Care. Body weight goes up. Heart rate stable. The machines don't beep as much. A few months in, they get to try breastfeeding. Cash does a pull-up in his crib.

Some days were bad. The machines beeped more often. Heart rate drops. Cash has to get shots in his eyes due to a condition similar to what Stevie Wonder had as an infant. Eric and Ana rush in from a dinner after the nurses call to tell them that Cash had ripped out his own oxygen tube. Later, Cash also rips out his feeding tube. Breastfeeding doesn't take, and all the milk Ana had saved up for months pumping eight times a day, every day, either had to be thrown out or donated. Corrective surgeries loomed.

"It was hell," Eric says. "But your only real choice is to be strong. You can't run from it. You have to find a way to push forward."

The routine never stopped. Be there. Be present. Be positive. Complications. Improvements. For 136 days.

There's a quiet moment towards the end of Robert Shaw's semi-fictional USS Indianapolis monologue in Jaws. After detailing the sinking of the ship that delivered the Hiroshima bomb, and the struggle to survive shark-infested waters in the days after, Shaw's character Quint tells of the day that a helicopter came down and started to rescue the men.

You know that was the time I was most frightened. Waitin' for my turn. I'll never put on a lifejacket again.

As weeks turned into months and Cash's body weight followed an upward trend, the medical staff begins to hint, carefully, that he could soon return home. In late April, under the care of the University of Miami Pediatric Surgery team, he has surgery to connect his stomach and esophagus, and a week later he has another surgical procedure. In between Ana has to visit urgent care herself, at the urging of Dayami, after breaking a finger at the gym, a surprise for Eric as he returned from the team's first-round playoff loss to Philadelphia. But the finish line begins to crest on the horizon.

Then, setbacks. Cash goes in for X-Rays and his heart-rate drops. Code Red. Home is delayed a week. Then his blood sugars are low. Three days before his next return date, Cash gets sick and has to get a spinal tap. Another delay. Every time the Glasses get close, the universe pushes back. All they can do is keep waiting.

"I was at the point where I was like, if you guys don't let me take him home I'm going to just take him right now," Eric says. "I was completely irrational."

On June 2nd, about three weeks before Eric leaves for Sacramento and Las Vegas to head the HEAT's Summer League team for the first time, the day comes. Expecting a little excitement after such an elongated stay, the Glasses arrived at South Miami that day only to find that hardly any of their regular hospital staff was working that day. No tears. No celebrating. They picked Cash up and drove home at 15 miles an hour, like any new parents.

Eric had made a pact with his son not to touch his beard until they all came home together. Finally, he got to shave.

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The Time Out

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NEXT MAN UP

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Although Kendrick Nunn’s journey to the NBA hasn’t been easy, he’s always had one person in his life to push him to greater heights.

His father, Melvin, who played professionally overseas in New Zealand, was Kendrick’s first coach. And while a lot of time has passed since then, Melvin is just as impactful now as he was all those years ago.

“[My dad has] been the hero in my life, a role model as well,” Nunn said. “He’s been there every step of the way for me, and he still is.”

Those steps began on the south side of Chicago, where Nunn was molded into the person and player he is today.

“Just growing up on the south side of Chicago, playing outside the park every day, back yard every day, even going to school at Simeon, it was tough,” Nunn said. “You know, you learn things and you just build that [toughness]…it’s just something you have to be in Chicago to experience.”

While at Simeon, Nunn continued the program’s rich basketball tradition and won four state titles alongside Jabari Parker. The duo still keeps in contact to this day, as Nunn and Parker speak weekly and hang out whenever they’re in the same town.

Once the two went their separate ways after high school, Nunn made his way to the University of Illinois before transferring to Oakland University in Michigan, where he won the 2017-18 Horizon Player of the Year Award and led the NCAA with 11 30-point games during his senior season. Despite that success, however, the dynamic guard went undrafted and played for the Santa Cruz Warriors of the G-League prior to signing with the HEAT on April 10.

In Summer League play this past July, Nunn averaged a team-high 22.0 points, a team-high 5.2 assists, 4.3 rebounds and 1.7 steals on a 62.4 true shooting percentage and a 25.9 usage rate in six games across Sacramento and Las Vegas. For his role in Vegas, specifically, he was named to the All-MGM Resorts NBA Summer League First Team.

“That was my second Summer League, so I was pretty familiar with how it would go,” Nunn said. “The advantage I had was working out with the HEAT all summer up until Summer League, so that helped a lot.”

What also helped was his improved playmaking ability.

Nunn has always been able to put the ball in the basket, but his commitment to becoming a better facilitator and more of a combo guard really showed during the summer gauntlet. In particular, Nunn worked with close friend and former Detroit Piston point guard Will Bynum back in Chicago.

“He’s like a big brother to me,” Nunn explained. “He’s been giving me tips and just little things to work on.”

So, what exactly did he work on to become a better playmaker?

“Just seeing the floor better, knowing when to get guys shots, things like that. It’s not hard for me because, as a wing, I know where I want the ball and stuff like that,” Nunn said. “So, it’s kind of an easy translation to be a point guard. I know when the guys want it and how they want it and stuff like that, so it’s an easy transition for me.”

Sioux Falls Skyforce Head Coach, Eric Glass, who saw that transition up close and personal throughout Summer League, discussed Nunn’s ability to play both guard spots back in July.

“I think especially the way the NBA is going now, if you’re skilled, you can find time on the court,” Glass said. “So, he can play one or two, and he’s good enough defensively. He can guard either spot. He can score, he can pass, so he’ll be fine.”

And if that wasn’t enough, Erik Spoelstra took it a bit further on Media Day and really lauded K9’s work ethic. Of course, Nunn being from Chicago certainly helps matters.

“There’s a long lineage of non-drafted Miami HEAT players that have come through our player development program, and he is the next notable one,” Spoelstra said. “He’s a talent, and he has a great work ethic. There’s not many Chicago players, for whatever reason, that have come through here that I didn’t like…a lot of them are some of my favorites…I just like these Chicago kids…he’s not stunned by the expectations or the lights of this organization.”

While we’ve yet to see how Nunn fits with this group in particular, he certainly has the tools and mental makeup to thrive with the HEAT. Whether that means he’ll make his NBA debut sooner rather than later remains to be seen, but he’s ready for that moment, whenever that may be.

“Everything that I’ve been through, I’ve pretty much envisioned it,” he said. “I think that helps when you envision something and you bring it to life.”

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Kendrick Nunn Striving To Be HEAT’s Next Hidden Gem

MIAMI, July 26 – The Miami HEAT announced front office promotions today, including Adam Simon to HEAT Vice President, Basketball Operations/Assistant General Manager, Eric Glass to head coach of the Sioux Falls Skyforce, Miami’s NBA G League affiliate, and Eric Amsler to HEAT Director of Scouting and Director of Player Personnel/Skyforce General Manager.

“Adam has played an integral role in our player moves for more than 20 years and will now add his leadership for Basketball Operations while continuing to supervise Player Personnel and Skyforce Basketball Operations,” said HEAT Senior Vice President, Basketball Operations/General Manager Andy Elisburg. “Eric Glass has played a vital role in the development of our young players and veterans as well as providing crucial coaching and strategic support to Erik Spoelstra. We are excited that he will now be leading the Skyforce as we embody our philosophies and cultures with Skyforce and HEAT players as well as the Sioux Falls community. Eric Amsler will now be taking on additional leadership roles in Player Personnel as well as taking on the day-to-day responsibilities with Skyforce basketball. We are looking forward to seeing him bring his leadership to the Skyforce as we continue to strive to represent the G League as well as develop HEAT and Skyforce basketball players.”

Simon has been promoted to HEAT Vice President, Basketball Operations/Assistant General Manager after previously serving as HEAT Vice President, Player Personnel/HEAT Assistant General Manager/General Manager, Sioux Falls Skyforce. Simon, who is entering his 25th season with Miami, will assist Pat Riley and Andy Elisburg in all areas of Miami’s Basketball Operations department. In addition to his HEAT duties, he spent the last six seasons as General Manager of the Skyforce, helping Sioux Falls capture the 2016 NBA G League championship and winning at least a share of three divisional titles. He also received the NBA G League’s inaugural Executive of the Year award for the 2015-16 season as the team recorded 40 wins, setting the single-season G League record.

Glass, who has been with the HEAT organization for nine years, served as head coach of Miami’s Summer League team for the past two seasons, recently going 6-2 this year after posting a perfect 3-0 record in the California Classic and a 3-2 record in the NBA Las Vegas Summer League, leading the team to the quarterfinals. Over the last two seasons, Glass held the title of Video Coordinator/Player Development Coach where he oversaw the creation of all video edits that Miami’s coaching staff used to scout opponents while also having a presence in the counseling and development of HEAT players. In 2014, he served as an assistant coach under Mike Fratello for the Ukraine National Team during the FIBA World Cup and the 2013 EuroBasket Championships. He was named Video Coordinator by head coach Erik Spoelstra in 2013 after joining Miami as an intern in 2010. Prior to joining the HEAT, Glass served as Video Coordinator at UC Irvine for the 2009-10 season after previously being the Men’s Basketball Graduate Assistant for Cal State Fullerton from 2007-09.

Amsler has been promoted to HEAT Director of Scouting and Director of Player Personnel/General Manager, Sioux Falls Skyforce after previously serving as HEAT Director of Scouting and Assistant Director of Player Personnel/Assistant General Manager, Sioux Falls Skyforce. Over his 15 seasons in Miami, he has served the organization in different capacities in Basketball Operations, including Director of Scouting and Assistant Director of Player Personnel in 2017 after being previously named as Director of Scouting Operations for three seasons. Prior to that, he was the Scouting &amp; Player Personnel Coordinator from 2007-2014 and the Scouting &amp; Information Coordinator in 2006 before joining the organization as a Basketball Operations Intern in 2004.

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HEAT Announce Front Office Promotions

When you draft a player with a particular skillset, at minimum you typically want to see that skillset show up in Summer League.

When you draft a shooter, you want them to shoot.

In a 24-minute debut against the Los Angeles Lakers at the Sacramento Summer League, Herro took 10 threes – off the dribble, in transition, sizing up mismatches, spotting up well past NBA range – and 15 shots overall. At Kentucky, the most threes he ever attempted in a single game was eight. That he made five of those shots from deep (for 18 total points) was nice, to be sure, but he could have missed every one of his looks with those compact mechanics and it wouldn’t have mattered one bit. The player the HEAT drafted came out and played like the player the HEAT thought they drafted.

“We definitely like that aggressiveness,” Summer League head coach Eric Glass said.

Herro’s tape at Kentucky made it pretty clear that he had a more expansive game than your typical college shooter, so it’s not as though the HEAT were unveiling a skillset revelation in the same way as Bam Adebayo suddenly busting out with the ball full-court a few years back, but it was still notable that from the very first possession Herro was running offense. There were times when the defense got in his face and kept him perpendicular to the rim. There were also moments, hitting the dive man off a screen or running a shooter-shooter pick-and-roll with Duncan Robinson, where the simple plays looked natural.

“He’s got a pretty unique skillset. He’s not just a shooter,” Glass said. “He can handle. He’s learning how to make plays. Every game he’ll learn something new, but we like him in that spot.”

Whether it’s something Herro does during the regular season remains to be seen. No judgements are coming after a single game in July. Just remember that the HEAT don’t push a player to do something, particularly on offense, unless they think there’s something there.

When it came to shooting, they didn’t have to push at all.

Transition was Herro’s second-most common play type at Kentucky, accounting for just over a quarter of his total possessions. He scored 1.27 points per possession on those plays, with an effective field-goal percentage of 65.0 on 103 shots which roughly translates to film as Captain Kaneda’s final scene in Sunshine. Those numbers also translated to Summer League almost immediately. Both off the catch…

These are fairly simple plays against defenses that have had about three days to prepare, so Herro getting open here shouldn’t blow your mind. Yet it still matters that he was open. After the draft we invoked the name of Ray Allen for reference, not comparison, due to the fact that Allen spent an entire career getting open in ways no defense should have ever allowed but there he always was, stepping into space in the open floor and making the opposing coach call timeout. Herro has a similar knack, one that we’ll probably appreciate better over time rather than in any single highlight.

“That’s kind of a talent you have,” Glass said. “He can find those open spaces. He knows where to get the ball. We’re not teaching him that. That’s something that he came in with.”

Creating for himself in the half-court, Herro looked most comfortable getting to his pull-up, attempting a number of step-backs and this one side-step which, while a miss, helps to illustrate how much space he can create and still rise up on balance.

“Actually that’s where I shoot my best,” Herro said, referencing his off-the-dribble game.

Again, Herro’s college numbers back this up, where he shot 44.5 percent on all dribble jumpers. But wait, is he saying he’s actually better on what are typically more difficult shots?

“Right now, I’m just working on shooting off the catch.”

We’ll keep this relatively brief. There will be more to dive into as Summer League rolls into training camp and preseason and, eventually, real games. For now, the important thing is that Herro looks as advertised.

There’s work to do, as with any 19-year old, but living up to your own standards in a debut outing is nothing to take for granted.

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Shooters Shoot, And Tyler Herro Shot

Irene Herrera

MIAMI, June 26 – The Miami HEAT announced today that they will be participating in both the California Classic in Sacramento and the NBA Summer League in Las Vegas. Current HEAT players Duncan Robinson, Yante Maten and Kendrick Nunn as well as Miami’s 2019 first round draft pick, Tyler Herro, will participate. Miami HEAT Video Coordinator/Player Development Coach Eric Glass will serve as the Head Coach during summer league play.

Practice sessions will begin Friday, June 28 and will continue through Sunday, June 30 in Sacramento. The HEAT begins summer league play on Monday, July 1 in Sacramento, and will play three games over the three-day event before heading to the NBA Summer League in Las Vegas with their first game scheduled for Friday, July 5. The team will play four games in Las Vegas before entering a tournament style schedule, with a champion being crowned on Monday, July 15.

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HEAT Announce Summer League Information

We’ll get right to the basketball in just a moment. We promise. But first, let’s paint a portrait.

Imagine for yourself a 6-foot-7 swingman. Give him a seven-plus-foot wingspan, just to satisfy all the draftniks out there. Now make him one of the most athletic players in the league. Not Summer League. Not the G-League. Make him an elite NBA athlete. Just for good measure, give him all those descriptors that help rocket players up the draft boards – competitive, coachable, a hard worker.

If such a player were floating around the league, unattached to any team, would you consider it worth your while to pick him up?

Clearly we’re talking about Derrick Jones Jr here, but the point of this little exercise is just to give you an idea of what the Miami HEAT were looking at when they first signed Jones Jr. to a two-way contract last December. He was a lottery ticket to be sure, but considering he’s the same age or younger than some of the lottery picks in this year’s draft, he’s shown enough in the development process and in two games in Sacramento that HEAT officials believe him to be just as valuable as a first-round pick. He wasn’t a July 1 priority by mistake.

Belief doesn’t come cheap in Miami. The team is more than happy to be wowed by, in the words of Summer League coach Eric Glass, the “ridiculous stuff” that Jones Jr. can do on the court. That might be enough to get you noticed, and it certainly raises your ceiling as a player, but it only gets you so far. Erik Spoelstra’s developmental program demands buy in, and by all accounts those demands have been met.

“He took it upon himself to come here,” Bam Adebayo said of his summer teammate. “He knew what the HEAT was about. I feel like Derrick is a HEAT guy. He’s been [in the gym] every day since Day 1. He never got discouraged about his position or about how he was playing. He just kept working.”

Averaging 22.5 points through two games on 54 percent shooting, Jones Jr. has been making the wow moments look easy. Both with dunks that impress even Adebayo…

“Just pure athleticism,” Adebayo says. “He thinks its normal.”

Plus blocks that are simply unachievable for most players, including one you should take particular note of because it came after his own mistake on the offensive end.

But it’s the running payoff of the behind-the-scenes work that impresses the HEAT’s top brass. It hasn’t all been perfect – Jones Jr. has said after both games that he wants to earn more assists – but he’s also being challenged to play outside of his comfort zone in a playmaker role. During the regular season, alongside the likes of Goran Dragić, Dion Waiters and James Johnson, Jones Jr. won’t have to do much of that. He will, however, need to space the floor.

“You have to be able to shoot in this league or you ain’t going to stick, it’s as simple as that,” Jones Jr. said. “I learned that I had to develop a jump shot at a young NBA age, and I’m doing that right now.”

Through his first two stints in the NBA, first with Phoenix and then with Miami, Jones Jr. shot 6-of-29 from three (20.6 percent). In his first two Summer League games, he’s 5-of-9. You should never base much off of such a small sample size, but the key thing here is repeatable delivery.

There have been and will continue to be misses, but considering that four months ago Jones Jr.’s jumper was a little bit slower, with a bit more cross-body action that led to more of a fling, we can at the very least say he’s made progress working with Miami’s shooting consultant Rob Fodor.

“We tweaked a few things, but its mostly just getting shots up,” Jones Jr. said. “Getting reps up, putting time in the gym. I don’t plan on logging out until I reach my goal.”

While it’s a bit of a niche skill in today’s NBA where most teams prioritize transition defense so they don’t succumb to an avalanche of three-point shooting, Jones Jr. has the makings of an elite offensive rebounder.

In his 212 minutes with the HEAT last season, Jones rebounded 10.2 percent of the team’s misses – a number which would have ranked him among the Top 20 of all players, big men included, had he been eligible. And the team is leaning into the potential.

“That is a major emphasis right now in Summer League,” Glass said. “We’re on him to crash. But I think that’s a skillset of his.”

Of course, this being the HEAT we’re talking about, defense is what is going to get Jones Jr. minutes in the big leagues. But with him making plays like this…

His coach doesn’t sound all too concerned about that aspect.

“He’s super competitive and you saw it this year when he was on our main team, he was guarding [James] Harden,” Glass said. “He was guarding the best guys in the league. Sometimes athletes don’t have a great feel for the game, but he’s found a way to utilize his athleticism to make impactful plays on the game. The sky is the limit for him.”

It’s summer. You can get lost making proclamations off what you see in summer. But the HEAT think they have found something. What exactly it is remains to be seen, but finding anything at all, for both player and team, counts for something.

Before we go, let’s quickly hop in the time machine. It’s 2016, before Jones Jr. would go undrafted out of UNLV. On DraftExpress, since absorbed into ESPN in a manner of speaking, Joshua Riddell summarizes his scouting report of Jones Jr. as such:

“Either way, Jones is a player NBA scouts will be keeping close tabs on down the road, as at only 19 years old he has huge upside, and still has an incredible amount of room to grow as a basketball player. If he can find a good development situation where he can, at the very least, become a capable spot-up shooter, and a more attentive and fundamentally sound defender, there is no question that he could find a role in today's NBA.”

There’s a long way yet to go, but after a few pit stops it seems as though Jones Jr. has found the right fit.