Training Camp

Couper Moorhead

As a 19-year-old rookie out of Kentucky, Tyler Herro burst onto the scene with clutch regular season shots and series-turning postseason performances. In this third year, he won Sixth Man of the Year scoring 20 points a night off the bench. And last year he became a full-time starter, upping his efficiency while adding the most clutch threes (19) in the entire league.

Now he’s back, with goals in mind and clear role as a focal point for an Erik Spoelstra offense that is set on being “intentional”. What follows is an interview from the Miami HEAT’s training camp at Florida Atlantic University.

We didn’t get much of a chance to discuss this last year since you were hurt by the time the movie came out…

Yeah, your cameo at the end that it felt like nobody talked about. I’m sure there was a whole process to that coming about, along with your relationship with Jack Harlow, but I’m curious whether your lines were scripted or improvised because while it’s against type for you, I’m not sure how much people know that was against type.

It was scripted but not really. Jack was like, my real personality is laid back and chill and he wanted to show the opposite with me acting all crazy like a hot head. They just said act like that and I was making s*** up on the fly.

There are a couple things I want to talk about from the summer because from afar it seemed like you were showing some incredible maturity about the noise around your name. You’ve been going through this for years now, that’s part of being a good young player in a way, but why do you think you’ve reached the point where you can take it all in stride and deal with everything going on around you?

It’s different than being a rookie and being in trade talks. I’m a little bit more established now. I’ve gotten paid and that plays a little bit into it, but mentally I just want to be where I’m wanted, where they want me and believe in me and they trust me at the end of the day. I feel like the HEAT still trust me and believe in me and all of that. I’m happy I’m here. At the end of the day it’s a business and I try to keep that in perspective at the same time because I’m in the NBA making millions of dollars and setting my family up for the rest of their lives, too. This is where I want to be so that’s why maybe I felt a little disappointed in some way, but I understand the business at the same time.

What sticks out in times like that is yes, guys are going to get put into trade rumors and be talked about, but then there’s this whole conversation about what are you worth, how many draft picks is this guy worth. I imagine it can be a little dehumanizing. Is that part of it strange to you, people discussing your worth, as if you’re a stock or an asset going up and down in value?

It’s funny, but everyone has their opinion. The only people that really know are the ones in the front offices making the trades and ultimately deciding whose value is what. I feel like I’m pretty damn valuable. I don’t know. I feel like I’m valuable as hell. At the end of the day, I’m going to show that this season and hopefully by the end of the season I’m going to be in the same boat as Bam.

One of the quotes that lingered all summer was what you said after breaking your hand in Milwaukee, how disappointed you were. Why does it matter to you so much to prove yourself in the playoffs, and is it entirely proving it to yourself or who all are you proving it to?

I would say really to the people that don’t think I can play in the playoffs. I was 18-19 in the bubble and was the third best player on our team in the bubble as a rookie in the playoffs. I had 12 points [in the first half in Milwaukee] before I got hurt. I know I can play in the playoffs, but at the end of the day it’s just about having that opportunity. Last year I felt like I had that, then obviously I hurt my hand. That was really heartbreaking for me because I was going to have a big playoffs and then that happened.

I just want that opportunity. In the playoffs, bright lights on the big stage. That’s what I’m about.

It was a perfect series, too, at least in theory with all of Milwaukee’s drop coverage. Pretty easy to see how that would be a Tyler series.

That series, and then the Knicks did the same s*** with the drop, they make us shoot threes and s*** like that. I was like, those first two series I would have torn those series down. The Celtics would have been the Celtics, and then the Nuggets they played drop and stuff like that, too. Watching the Finals, I just saw so much opportunity for me to do my thing and help the team win. We scored [around 90 points] for three games straight, I just felt like there was an opportunity for me and it was tough just watching.

Every year we talk to Bam about why Defensive Player of the Year is important to him and why it remains a goal. Why is being an All-Star important to you?

It’s been one of my goals since I came here. I always remember as a rookie, when I got drafted in the press conference Pat said, ‘Spo is going to make me an All-Star’. That’s what the goal is at the end of the day. I want to be somebody who is an All-Star. I don’t feel like I’m a role player. I feel like I can help this team win and really move the needle. With winning comes All-Star (selections).

I’ll let you decide where to take this because we know how things can get aggregated, but what do you see as your peer group in the league as offensive players?

There’s not a place on the floor offensively that I’m uncomfortable. So offensively, you can ask my teammates and coaches, I think I’m one of the best players in the league offensively.

Obviously defensively I have things to work on and I feel like every year I get better.

You seemed to make a point of speaking on that a few times last year.

Yeah. Physically I’m never going to be a lockdown defender but I’m going to give my 100 percent effort. I’m going to try. My big thing this year, I told Spo this, is just being solid on the ball but then being electrically effective off the ball, being fast and quick in the passing lanes. I can get steals.

It was against Boston last year where you had that late game steal you took a lot of pride in?

Yeah, and the Knicks, too. Just continuing to get better defensively and offensively I think I’m one of those guys already.

Your efficiency went up a bit last year after becoming a starter, and you had this thing where you’re on ball, multi-dribble shooting efficiency went up. Was that just natural skill progression or did being a starter help you manage your shot diet a little more?

Off multiple dribbles. We take out single dribbles to get rid of relocation dribbles, but otherwise you were up between 5-10 percentage points in effective field-goal depending on how you sliced the numbers.

Ok, yeah. I work a lot in the offseason on off the dribble stuff with my trainer, Drew Hanlen. We work a lot off the dribble, and then when I come around here with the HEAT with Coach Quinn we work a lot on catch-and-shoot. So I spend all my summers working on ballhandling, using my dribble to create space, getting into guys, getting fouled – that’s something I’m really trying to do this year. I feel like off the dribble I can be really effective, but I also effective off the catch, too.

You mentioned free-throw rate, which is always a tougher thing to say, ‘Well, I’m just going to do that.’ Because there’s layers to free-throws. How do you actually go about getting your free-throw rate up, what do you have to change in order to do that?

One thing is the game is slowing down for me and being comfortable in those tight spaces. Like Jalen Brunson in the playoffs, just being comfortable in the paint with the ball. Even Austin Reaves a little bit, he’s really good at drawing fouls and I paid attention to that a lot. Being able to get into guys bodies, being aggressive and eating up that space, being able to take contact.

Your rim rate fell a little bit last year after spiking during your Sixth Man of the Year campaign. There’s two parts of this, how do you get that back up but also is there a danger to overextending or trying to overexpand your game, focusing too much on the rim, to the point where you lose what you’re good at?

I think there’s a fine balance. Spo really emphasized to me before camp when we spoke to just take what they give me. Keeping it really simple, really easy, and any open shot is a good look for me. If I get a good catch-and-shoot shot and they close out hard, that’s the time to attack. Just being aggressive and knowing when the time is to attack and when to shoot, because obviously shooting is what got me into this position. It’s about being who I am while adding things to help me take the next step.

On a different note, I’ve got two young daughters and I’m curious as to how the two kids have changed your life. I could not imagine being your age and having two young kids, the thought of that is crazy to me. How has dadhood changed your life?

I definitely don’t feel like I’m 23. Feel like I’m a little bit older, maturity wise. It changed my whole life, honestly. Free time, everything, there’s sacrifices you have to make. I appreciate that more as I get older. My daughter just turned two and I didn’t really see the sacrifices that I needed to make and wanted to make and now as I get older I appreciate those things more. I’m still only 23 but as I get older I appreciate my daughter and how much she means to me, how much she motivates me.

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The Creator: Tyler Herro Talks Cameos, Offseason Noise, Skill Development, The Disappointment Of Postseason Injuries, Dadhood And His Place In the NBA

When it comes to stopping the other side from scoring, the Miami HEAT are almost always going to figure it out.

Sure, there are going to be seasons where certain lineups drag their defensive numbers down. There are going to be years where opponent shooting percentages turn a Top 5 ranking into a Top 10 one. Even last year when there was some slippage, Erik Spoelstra dialed up record-setting amounts of zone, had Bam Adebayo – the HEAT always have a Top 5 level defense with Adebayo on the floor, even with bad luck, and in the playoffs Adebayo is almost always on the floor – play more coverages than ever and the team finished No. 9.

Care to guess how many times the team has been outside the Top 15, and thus below average, in Defensive Rating since Spoelstra took over in 2008? It’s fewer than two.

Offense is a different story, which tracks on a league level. Reaching Tier 1 on that side requires a combination of elite scoring talent, players that fit next to each other and good-to-great shooting. As great as Jimmy Butler and Bam Adebayo are, they’re still two high-usage players who don’t shoot threes until Butler snaps his fingers in the playoffs. Even when Miami led the league in three-point percentage two years ago, they only finished No. 12 in Offensive Rating – the first team since the 2012-13 Golden State Warriors to lead the league in three-point percentage and finish outside the Top 10. When the HEAT’s shooting dropped to No. 27 last season, their offense finished No. 25.

There was a change after the All-Star break, though, as Miami’s Offensive Rating jumped up to 115.6 – which would have been Top 10 for the full season – from 111.1. In the playoffs the shooting exploded as the team tied the league record with seven games of 45 percent on at least 25 attempts from three, including four games over 50 percent. During that time, when Spoelstra was asked about the improving attack he would use one word that you have to hear a handful of times, in different contexts, to really start to decode.

Months later, that word is still lingering around the HEAT.

“We’re going to approach this regular season with intent,” Spoelstra said on Media Day. “We really want to have everybody to approach this the right way.”

“I’ve used this word a lot,” Spoelstra says a couple days later. “We are going to be a lot more intentional. From Day 1, yesterday, today, that’s what we’ve been talking about, drilling about. We were so much more intentional after the All-Star Break. It was costly to us before that.”

“Intention, and lack of intention, were just as impactful in both of those segments of the year.”

What does that really mean? Here’s one way to look at it if you’ll excuse a longer metaphor. In 1978’s The 36th Chamber of Shaolin, one of the most iconic kung-fu films ever made, Gordon Liu’s character San Te arrives at a Shaolin temple after some particularly tragic life events and asks to train in martial arts. San Te quickly finds out what that really means, working his way up from the very beginning, starting at the 1st Chamber which focuses on being light of foot – no shortcuts, no skipped steps. You don’t move on until you master the current chamber. Six years later, he reaches the end and is offered his pick of the chambers to teach. Instead, San Te opens the 36th Chamber, where he can teach the Shaolin style to new disciples.

That’s how Miami’s offense succeeds. That’s what intention means. With Spoelstra and his staff teaching from the final chamber, the HEAT have to master every aspect of their offense to be among the best. Just as San Te had to master both arm strength and spatial awareness, Miami’s handoffs have to be crisp, their screens have to be forceful, their spacing has to be pinpoint and their shot diet has to be consistent in order to allow for natural variance. Sure, Spoelstra will rely on a common refrain or two in order to avoid breaking down too much of his own systems, but there’s always a core truth behind his messaging. “Be Intentional,” isn’t a detail, it’s all the details.

“It’s all encompassing,” Spoelstra says. “We want to have a specific style that we’re trying to get to, which we know what that is. We want to get certain guys involved, get them to their strength zones. That’s Jimmy, Bam, Tyler for sure. Our spacing. And then making sure we’re disciplined to that every single possession. That takes time and it’s a habit that you have to build.”

“To do anything with intent you have to be detailed so that you’re doing it the right way,” Caleb Martin says. “That’s just the process to get to execution. I think that’s what he means by being intentional because it leads to execution, especially in crucial parts of the game.”

If there’s a single difference between Spoelstra’s offense today and what it was five years ago, before Butler arrived, Josh Richardson says it’s that while the offense is still democratic – with Butler being the only truly elite isolation player, half-court possessions thrive and shrivel on Miami’s pace and movement – there are now three set-in-stone players who power the entire operation.

“There’s guys you really have to get it to,” he says.

Butler is a paragon of consistency. Four regular seasons in, we know how he’s going to handle things. He’s going to pick his spots, picking up the offense whenever it starts to drag by driving shoulders-first towards the paint, and he’ll end up posting a highly efficient 25 percent usage rate. In the playoffs, he’ll take on even more of a burden and he’ll outright win games that would otherwise go in the other column.

Adebayo seemed to find himself offensively last year, upping his isolation opportunities while taking more upper paint jumpers than anyone in the league, with only he and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander topping 150 attempts. Always efficient before, Adebayo found his style. It was a style that worked in the playoffs as Adebayo found success against both drop coverage and switches. The counter he and team can now attack – the chamber they’re currently in, if you will – is how to approach teams crowding Adebayo in the middle of the floor.

Herro had his season cut short after breaking his hand in the first game against the Milwaukee Bucks. He never got to test the skill gains he made against the best of the best, and the most detailed scouting reports. He’ll have to wait another full season for his board exams, but until then the path forward for him is clear. He doesn’t have to be something he’s not – a high-volume isolation player, like most aren’t – he simply must be a better version of who he is.

“Being more efficient, that’s my main thing,” Herro said. “Getting to the free-throw line more, creating contact. More drives, more free-throws, more threes.”

It would be easy to say that the offense will go as far as those three take them, but if you’ve been paying attention so far you know that isn’t the point, nor is it what Spoelstra believes. He doesn’t just roll the ball out, call for 65 pick-and-rolls and call it a day, no matter how efficient the Herro-Adebayo combination often is. Butler, Adebayo and Herro can be the core of a very good offense, especially if the open shots are falling – the HEAT were league-average shooting away from above-average offense even before All-Star last year – but they aren’t going to bail out a bad one, at least not over the course of 82 games.

The question, then, is what pieces are going to fit around them.

Kyle Lowry stated on Tuesday that he’s coming into camp expecting to be the starting point guard, which is probably a little less dramatic than it sounds when you consider Lowry’s career. There’s a very good chance that Lowry’s pick-and-roll creation, especially his consistent pocket-passes for Adebayo and his ability to create mismatches for Butler, is the best offensive fit for the opening group, especially with Lowry healthy. But if Spoelstra wants to watch Lowry’s minutes to get him to the postseason, that can be easier with him off the bench.

Richardson is a good enough shooter, and a reliable enough defender, to slot into any lineup. Starting him would mean Herro, Butler and Adebayo all shouldering more playmaking duties. That’s something they’ve all done before, but there’s a difference between having a guard to set you up and having to set other people up. Butler running point, for example, makes it tougher for him to burrow into a mismatch on the block, and likewise Herro running point keeps him from running off screens and distorting the defense with his gravity.

Martin fits anywhere, though a little role consistency may help him in the long run. His shooting, however unconventional, is reliable, his rim aggression is necessary and as he proved in the postseason he can create shots in a pinch wherever and whenever he’s being played.

Love is the easy pick as a floor spacer next to Adebayo for now, based on his usage after arriving last March, but Spoelstra has the good problem of having options behind him. Haywood Highsmith, who has intentions on being much more than just a corner three-point shooter, is a strong defensive option. Nikola Jovic could pop as a do-it-all offensive player in his second year, and his open-court playmaking and secondary ballhandling could, in theory, balance out a lineup that doesn’t have Lowry starting.

Behind Adebayo, there are two stretch-fives ready to go in Thomas Bryant and Orlando Robinson (assuming the volume shooting is real). That’s a camp battle that has yet to play out, but five-out looks have always boosted Miami’s looks with only one or two of their core scorers.

“We’re going to push each other,” Bryant said of Robinson. “It’s always competitive spirit out there. At the end of the day everybody wants to win, it doesn’t matter who is out there as long as we build the right traits and relationships to win on the court.”

There’s also the losses of Gabe Vincent and Max Strus that are worth discussing, where we should avoid the trap of talking about how to replace their exact skillsets as opposed to their overall impact. You don’t find another Jason Giambi, you find players who can impact the game the same in the aggregate. Neither was a perfect player, nor would they claim to be, but they were crucial parts of Spoelstra’s intentionality. If Vincent and Strus were on the floor, they were going to run the right things at the right times and take the shots the team needed them to take. Most crucially, they were trusted.

Up and down Miami’s roster there are young players looking for standard contracts or two-way spots. Maybe Cole Swider makes an impression and the next movement shooter to come through Miami’s system. Maybe Jamal Cain’s shooting gets his defense on the floor more consistently. Many at camp have commented on rookie Jaime Jaquez Jr.’s poise and veteran mentality, and he has the same Swiss Army knife toolkit to slot in to a variety of lineups just like Martin and Richardson. Like Martin before him, R.J. Hampton has the pedigree of a player on a standard, not a two-way, deal. Jovic could be many things, and Robinson could be playing 15 minutes a game in short order. All these players could theoretically replace the production, offense and defense combined, of Vincent and Strus, but being a 16-game player is another thing entirely.

“They’ve just got to prove themselves,” Love said. “With Max and Gabe you knew from their temperament, what they were capable of. That trust level comes from how they handle themselves in tough situations and being able to put them out there and trust them.

“Just stack good days,” Martin said of how to earn trust. “Stack good days as much as possible. Gabe, Max and myself, that stuff doesn’t happen overnight. You’re not going to come in here and earn trust in one practice, one game, one preseason game, you have to continue to stack good days and even through the bad days you learn and find other ways to be productive. You can earn trust other than just putting the ball in the basket.”

It’s a good mix to have. You don’t want your entire team trying to earn their first shots, because then guys start stepping on each other. Nor do you want your entire team playing with an eye on the postseason, because then you might lose your day-to-day edge. Today’s roster has players to hold the line and others to push their way forward. No matter how well things go in the regular season, trust is going to have to be earned in the most important moments.

For now, you don’t want to take the defense for granted but you know there’s a reasonably high floor on that end – and perhaps even a higher ceiling than last year depending on how the rotation shakes out. For the offense, there’s no panacea You can’t rely on shooting historic on the three-point road, no matter who you are. It’s the process that will matter, the details in every handoff, every screen and every set. At their best, the HEAT win playoff series playing mistake-free basketball – often going up early by taking Game 1 – while, with those well-timed details, forcing other teams into blown coverages and bad matchups. They aren’t going to win a title skipping chambers.

With this roster, the road to a great offense is paved with intention.

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The 36 Chambers Of Spoelstra: The Key To Miami’s Offense Lies In Mastering The Details

With Media Day and Training Camp on the horizon, let's take a look at the entire roster and any questions we have about individual players headed into another long season.

Kyle Lowry – Does He Start, Does It Matter?

Maybe, and no. We could easily see Lowry back in the starting lineup, or he could return to the bench role that revitalized his efficiency in the latter stages of the season and playoffs. Even though both Gabe Vincent and Max Strus left in free agency, Erik Spoelstra could opt for more democratic ballhandling duties in that first group, with Tyler Herro and Jimmy Butler running offense while slotting in another wing such as Josh Richardson, Duncan Robinson, Caleb Martin or Haywood Highsmith. Bench minutes are a little easier to manage for a coach, as Lowry averaged 33 as a starter and 23 as a reserve, and he will turn 38 in March. Either way, like most of the known-quantity vets on this team it’s all about being ready for a postseason run.

Kevin Love – Is There More To Integrate With A Full Training Camp?

Typically, any midseason acquisition is going to benefit from a full offseason and training camp with his new team over the sporadic practice time available during the schedule. Love, however, was as plug-and-play as they come, immediately stepping into the starting lineup and Miami’s well-worn floor-spacing role between Jimmy Butler and Bam Adebayo. The full-court outlet passes were flying both early and late, toppling the New York Knicks in Game 1 of that series, and Love always appeared more than happy with whatever was required from him in a given matchup, even as his minutes shortened a bit against Boston only for him to return as a starter against Denver. No drama here, on or off the court.

Jimmy Butler – Is There Anything To Gain In The Regular Season?

With apologies to Lowry and Love, each of whom has a championship ring back at home, there isn’t a player on this team who has proven himself more times over in the playoffs than Butler, last year adding a 56-point masterpiece against Milwaukee in Game 4 to his ever-growing list of legends and myths. This question, then, isn’t so much about Butler the player as much as it is about new league rules. To qualify for any of the league awards, including the All-NBA team for which Butler has been selected in three of his four HEAT seasons, players now must play in at least 65 games under the new Collective Bargaining Agreement. Butler’s first two seasons were warped by the pandemic so it’s not all apples-to-apples, but the closest he’s come to 65 is last season at 64. If you’re hurt, you’re hurt, so maybe this is all a moot point, but Butler just turned 34 and has been kept to between 33 and 34 minutes a game each season by Erik Spoelstra like clockwork. The postseason is the thing. It’s the only place left for Butler after leading Miami to the Finals two of the past four years. There just might be a squeeze for veteran stars around the league, especially those who are laser focused on a ring, when it comes to regular season accolades. And while Butler might already be a Hall of Famer, a few more of those accolades will only help to secure his case.

Josh Richardson – Is The Fit As Clean As It Looks?

There isn’t a soul in the building that won’t be happy to see Richardson back. He was as well liked as any young player who has worn a HEAT uniform and there’s little doubt that will change. Back during his first Miami run Richardson grew from a pure spot-up, 3-and-D rookie to someone who could share lead ballhandling duties with a 20 percent usage rate. Defensively, he can take on many of the same assignments that Caleb Martin and Gabe Vincent took on last season and should be able to pair with Martin at the top of the zone. Efficiency, particularly inside the arc, will be top of mind as it is for any role player, but there isn’t a lineup he doesn’t fit into in theory.

Thomas Bryant – Is He The Backup Center?

Bryant fits right into a mold the HEAT have gotten plenty of mileage out of in recent history, the floor-spacing five who can finish in pick-and-roll. In a normal year, that would slot Bryant into the backup spot immediately. This year, though, Orlando Robinson – less proven, but with a promising skillset that loosely resembles Bryant’s – will be fighting for those same minutes in training camp. Chances are, if the shooting is comparable, it’s the defense that will decide things, either in October or over the course of the season.

Bam Adebayo – What Is The Next 10% Jump?

Adebayo’s improvement is unique. Rather than seeing any one single huge leap in his game – beyond the minutes gain that came from starting full-time in 2019-20 – he basically gets 10 percent better each season. Trouble finishing at the rim? Fixed. Issues making short mid-range shots? Gone. Need a go-to shot against drop coverage, here’s a dotted-line jumper. Adebayo doesn’t have all the answers, but he always seems to come back with some answer to at least try and combat anything that came up the previous year.

After topping 20 points for the first time – his usage remained flat, largely due to a decrease in free-throw rate and an increase in minutes – playing a wider variety of defensive coverages, beyond switching, than ever before, and shouldering an increased offensive load in the postseason against different schemes, what could be next? One guess is that he’ll work on cleaning up his reads and comfort in the middle of the floor. As much as he relied on those short jumpers last year, some teams started to swarm him on catch, varying up their angles to keep him on their toes. More reps will only help there, as will adding a few more one-on-one moves when the help disrupts his catch-and-shoot timing but retreats to give him a one-on-one. The question with Adebayo is never whether he will come back better, it’s how.

Duncan Robinson – How Can He Build Off His Postseason Run?

It’s been a strange couple of years for Robinson. After posting two of the best high-volume shooting seasons in league history and legitimately freaking out every opposing defense, Robinson opened 2021-22 on a prolonged slump. He eventually got back to his normal 40 percent, but by then he was no longer starting and in that postseason he only played 12 minutes a game. This season he was hampered by a thumb injury, shooting 32.8 percent from three in 42 games, before undergoing surgery. At the start of the playoffs, he was barely in the rotation. Then Herro breaks his hand and Robinson eventually becomes maybe the most important, or at least impactful, offensive player on the team, as the HEAT scored 117.7 per 100 with him on the court, highest mark of anyone.

Sometimes Robinson really was their best offense, coming in when things were bogged down and just launching until the defense overreacted and he could slide into the paint for an easy one. You’d have to imagine such a run would be great for the confidence, and being healthy surely helped, but the roster is whole again and there may not be as much opportunity as there was during the march to the Finals. Still, Robinson’s chemistry with Adebayo is undeniable, as is his gravity, and with Max Strus in Cleveland there will be a need for movement shooting. Robinson’s game has become pretty fleshed out, with counters for the counters to counters, so it’s really about opportunity and consistency.

Tyler Herro – Is There More Off-Dribble Upside?

Nobody was more disappointed in the broken hand, coming in Game 1 against Milwaukee, than Herro, who wanted to prove himself in a high-usage role on the biggest stage. He’ll have to wait another full season for the opportunity, but the good news is that after his Sixth Man of the Year campaign where he was oddly much more efficient off the catch than off the dribble despite the microwave scorer role, Herro added five percentage points to his off-dribble scoring – smaller gains than that only on jumpers, but 37 percent on dribble-threes is strong. Herro’s actual efficiency didn’t move, however, despite the move to the starting lineup – you would expect the percentages to go up a bit more with more open, Butler-and-Adebayo created looks, though this isn’t exactly a science – because his rim rate fell to a career low and his free-throw rate declined as well. In other words, Herro was better at taking star shots in a slightly more supporting role – still with plenty of usage, especially when Butler missed games – while becoming more of a 2.5 level scorer than true three-level. Short of a Steph Curry-esque season off the dribble – possible, given Herro’s talent, and he wasn’t too far off in 2021-22 – that’s the next level. Get to the rim more. Get to the free-throw line more. Easier said than done, given that those can be holy grail items more many scorers, but Herro hasn’t even turned 24 yet. There’s no reason to call him a finished product. He’s very, very good at what he does. Here’s betting that both he and the team think there’s another level to hit.

Like Lowry, Martin also began the season in the starting lineup before finishing it coming off the bench. That was less a commentary on Martin’s performance and more about basic team needs. The perception during Miami’s up-and-down regular season was that the opening group wasn’t getting it done, in part due to Martin being undersized for the power forward spot alongside Bam Adebayo. But while Martin isn’t as stout as P.J. Tucker was the previous year – this led to Erik Spoelstra employing a bit less switching to keep Adebayo around the rim – the starters with Martin and Lowry (or Gabe Vincent) were generally positive groups, with Miami’s troubles starting when either Adebayo or Butler hit the bench. For Martin’s part in all of it, he was as steady as they come no matter where his minutes came from, and his chemistry with Vincent at the top of Spoelstra’s zone coverage was one of Miami’s greatest assets.

When Herro broke his hand during the playoffs, things changed a bit. Not in a way that was particularly reflected in Martin’s usage rate, but there were incredibly memorable games (Game 2 in New York, Games 2 and 7 in Boston) where he got to dip back into his college bag and create some offense for a team that needed shot creation. Not only was Martin a huge part of the HEAT’s resurgent shooting, hitting 42 percent on 4.5 attempts a game, his overall efficiency (65.7 true shooting) coming from rim attacks and pull-up two had a huge effect in raising the HEAT’s offensive floor. You could easily argue that he was the HEAT’s third best player on the road to the NBA Finals. The question, then, is whether that performance will affect his role going forward? We’d argue that his role didn’t change as much as it looked. Martin has always been opportunistic with his aggressive stretches, rarely looking for something that isn’t there regardless of how his efficiency naturally rises and falls, and with a healthy team there’s no reason to think he won’t just keep being himself. Martin’s role is just to be Caleb Martin.

Haywood Highsmith – How Much Volume Is There?

Highsmith came into camp last year with a chance to be the next in line among undrafted players to earn a rotation spot in Miami. Quietly, he delivered, proving himself a trustworthy defender – Spoelstra had him on Jayson Tatum and Jamal Murray at times in postseason games – that could play his role on offense, taking spot-up threes, cutting off the ball and crashing the offensive glass. At nearly 27 years old it’s probably tough to see a big offensive explosion, but there are gains to be made in three-point volume even if they already make up over half of the shots he takes. Being able to get up shots at a high clip when necessary – an underrated part of Miami’s team-wide shooting spike in the playoffs – goes a long way for a role player, and Highsmith has shown progress as a move-and-relocate shooter. The defense will play, and being a low-volume shooter can work in the P.J. Tucker sense, which is easily Highsmith’s closest comp, but the key to being a regular postseason spacer, and having gravity, is being a threat at any spot, at any time.

Justin Champagnie – Why Did Miami Bring Him Back?

After playing most of the 2022-23 season with the Sioux Falls Skyforce, where he scored an efficient 18 a game on 61.5 true shooting, and losing in the semifinals, Champagnie – another twin, as it happens, with his brother Julian also in the league – signed with the Boston Celtics for the remainder of the regular season. When Boston waived him in July, Champagnie quickly found himself back in Miami on a camp invite. Clearly, there’s something the HEAT likes here. He isn’t the first player who has taken big-league deals elsewhere and turned up back in Miami’s pipeline, so it isn’t a guarantee of future success, but he’s only 22 so there might be more to come in this story.

Williams is a 6-foot-5 guard who put up 64 percent true shooting on 19.3 percent usage with the Long Island Nets last year, during regular season play, taking four threes a game. His 62 percent on two-pointers during the G-League regular season is an astronomical number for his size, but that number drops to 54 percent including postseason and G-League Showcase games. While most of his offense came in transition and from spot-ups, he did get reps with the ball in his hands. The HEAT aren’t typically looking for volume scorers out of their G-League pipeline, to the point that they’ve remade some of those into role players (Gabe Vincent, for one), so this is one answer we may have to leave up for time at the moment. He can be what the HEAT see him as.

Cole Swider – Does He Fit An Archetype?

Swider is a 6-foot-9 shooter who can fire coming off screens, off handoffs or off the catch, standstill, relocating or in transition. Sound familiar? Just as Max Strus’ skillset fit the mold established by Duncan Robinson, Swider could fall right into that lineage of shooters who are maximized next to Bam Adebayo. There’s a long way between then and now – both Robinson and Strus needed some seasoning before earning a rotation spot – but it’s not hard to see the vision here.

On paper, Cain is following Miami’s developmental blueprint line for line. Put up big numbers in the G-League while working on your big-league skillset (usually shooting), get your feet wet with a handful of games at the highest level, get some good run in during Summer League and come back ready for a real opportunity the next year. So far, so mostly good, as Cain showed promise with his athleticism and defensive skillset when given an opportunity last season, hitting 37 percent from deep in the G-League and 35 percent during Summer League. Just as elite shooters don’t have to be elite defenders, an elite defender doesn’t have to be an elite shooter to carve out a longer-term spot in Miami, and if he fits comfortably along that spectrum Cain has a chance to be next in line for rotation minutes when players start missing games here and there. The HEAT don’t invest multiple years in players without thinking they have a chance to make an impact.

Orlando Robinson – How Real Is The Shooting?

Robinson only took six three in 31 games last season, but he took two a game while with Sioux Falls, over four during Summer League on 35 percent, and has regularly talked about working on his shooting. Granted, the efficiency has come and gone but it’s not out of the ordinary for a center to have a breakout shooting season if they put in the work. Robinson didn’t play much after the team signed Cody Zeller last year and that could mirror the acquisition of Bryant, but if you’re on Spoelstra’s roster you’re going to get your chances and if Robinson can make good on his development as a shooter when that opportunity comes, it’ll be that much tougher to keep him off the floor.

Dru Smith – Where Did He Go Last Season?

First signing with Miami before training camp in 2021, Dru Smith was on a two-way deal with the HEAT last season before being waived in mid-December. A month later, he signed a two-way deal with Brooklyn, eventually playing 91 minutes across 10 games. Smith has always appeared to fit in Gabe Vincent mold, but there’s a lot more between sharing a similar body type or skillset and being a 16-game bad*** like Vincent. When Miami waived Jamaree Bouyea this week it appeared to temporarily clear up some possible minutes for Smith down the road as one of the few smaller guards on the roster, but RJ Hampton’s signing should mean just as much competition in camp.

Nikola Jovic – Is He The Roster’s Biggest Wild Card?

It’s impossible not to like Jovic. If we told you that he came into the lockeroom before every game last season carrying a steaming hot cup of coffee, wearing aviators and firing off finger guns in slow motion at everyone he sees, it wouldn’t be that far from the truth. Young as he was, he often just felt like a kid who was happy to be there. But behind the exterior charm was a player who, once he dealt with a back injury that limited his activity for stretches of the year, was always seen putting in the work on his game. It appeared to pay off, too, as he scored 10 points a game on 42 percent three-point shooting with Serbia during the FIBA World Cup.

Jovic had a handful of solid performances in the first half of Miami’s season, mostly finishing pocket passes with a diving lane or spotting up from three. The skill that really popped was his passing and floor sense, making quick reads and immediately firing off accurate passes to the next open guy, even if the next open guy was on the other side of the floor. You could tell, easily, that there’s more than just a stretch-four in there, a big playmaker – in the mold of a Boris Diaw, Hedo Turkoglu or even Kevin Love, in a sense – even if it doesn’t come with a ton of traditional ballhandling at the same time. The defense was a work in progress and ultimately that will be his ticket to minutes, but if he can hang on that end and the shooting gets to league-average or better (he hit 23 percent of his 35 attempts last year) we could be looking at a real ceiling-raising player for a team that can always use dynamic offensive talent.

&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; He’s his own player, an undrafted 6-foot-9 rookie wing out of USC, but everything we said about Cole Swider applies to Peterson. After shooting 38 percent in his three years at USC (after two at Rice) he hit 47 percent across four Summer League games, doing all the same movement stuff, including some handoffs with Orlando Robinson, you expect from Miami’s shooter pipeline. The HEAT have a type, and for good reason. If there’s anything they’ve been able to consistently find of late, it’s shooting.

Jaime Jaquez Jr. – How Early Is Too Early For A Rotation Spot?

JJJ delivered on everything that was expected out of him after the draft – a high IQ, do-it-all wing whose efficiency should improve as he cuts out some of the college star shots from his diet – though he was limited to just two Summer League games due to injury. At 22 years old after four years at UCLA, Jaquez Jr. is the type of experienced rookie that you could see earning minutes early and often, but even for ready-to-play guys there is always an adjustment period. For some, it’s the speed of the game, though Jaquez Jr. plays as such a measured pace already that might be less of an issue. But for others, it’s the size and quickness of all the players they’re going up against. Defensively, that’s an adjustment for everyone. Jaquez Jr. might come out of the box ready to play 15 minutes a game like Christian Braun was for Denver last year, but even if it takes him a month or so to get acclimated there’s a world where Erik Spoelstra finds trust in a rookie come April, May and June. The shooting needs to be there, as always, and Jaquez Jr. has the type of controlled polish that could eventually lead to an outsized role, one that impacts winning, for a draft pick.

R.J. Hampton – Is There More Than Meets The Eye?

A very late addition to the training camp roster and backcourt, on a two-way contract no less, Hampton is a 21-year-old former No. 24 overall pick – he played a year in New Zealand instead of playing collegiate ball – traded a few days after the draft in 2020 from Milwaukee to Denver in the four-team Jrue Holiday deal. Since then he spent a couple of seasons in Orlando before finishing last year in Detroit. So it’s been a bit of a journey, but just because he hasn’t found his home or his role in the league doesn’t mean there isn’t talent. In fact, there’s enough talent here that it wouldn’t be surprising to see Hampton take the rare Caleb Martin path, a league veteran taking two-way deal to eventually work his way back into a rotation. Sure, it’s easy to write off signings that happen just days before camp, but nobody thought much of a quiet, mid-September signing of Martin two years ago, either.

Like Hampton, Diallo – a 6-foot-9 power forward) is a former draft pick (No. 33 overall) who has been on a journey, playing for three teams across five years in the league before heading abroad to play in Russia, Spain, Puerto Rico and Japan with a stop in the G-League in between all the flights. And like Hampton, you wouldn’t expect the HEAT to spend a camp spot on an older (relatively speaking, he’s 27) veteran rather than a young prospect without thinking there’s a place for him in the system.

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2023-24 Camp Preview: 21 Players, 21 Questions

Jimmy Butler“It’s special. So many good people here that I’ve been able to now call my family and my friends. Seriously. I’m here all the time, I love it here, I love these people here, I’m so glad the Miami HEAT, this organization and these players get to be around these wonderful people.”Tyler Herro“The Bahamas is home to us. We love it here. We came here just before the playoffs and we’re back now. It’s a short flight so we’ll probably be back soon. Thank you to everyone in the Bahamas for having us.”

Erik Spoelstra“We just love it. We love having the opportunity to come here and start our season, start our long journey but do it in a different environment where we can just get away and spend a lot of time with each other. We all love the Bahamas. We’re either doing this during the season or in the offseason we all come down at some point.”

Udonis Haslem“It forces that bond. That connection. We’re big on that here. One of the pillars of our team is enjoying each other’s success, and in order to genuinely do that you have to get to know the other guys. After practice, recovery we’re spending together, lunch we’re spending together, even our free time we’re hanging out, those things build our relationships going into the season.

“They always show love over here. I appreciate it. Our fanbase just continues to grow over here. These young guys get the chance to come over here, but I come over here a lot. I like to come spend time at the dock and go to McKenzie’s and hang out with the people. We really have a lot of HEAT fans over here, so I’m glad our guys get a chance to come over here and experience some of that love.”

Bam Adebayo“The Bahamians, man. That’s the difference [here]. It’s off-site. Different scenery, different vibes. Giving guys a different opportunity to get a change of pace. You got a different room. We haven’t done something like this since the bubble. This is a good experience for them and all of us.”

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Quotables From Baha Mar: The Miami HEAT Enjoy Six Days In Paradise

The Miami HEAT have just about wrapped up their training camp in The Bahamas and are headed home with a Red, White and Pink game ahead of them followed closely by the start of preseason. Here’s what we’ve been noting and noticing.

THE TOUGHEST JOB AT TRAINING CAMPDid you watch Top Gun: Maverick?

If not, you should. It’s great. There’s a scene where, paying homage to the volleyball from the original film, Tom Cruise’s character calls off training for the day and sets his team of pilots up on the beach to play what he calls Dogfight Football. Two balls. Offense and defense at the same time.

Chances are that you, like everyone else, thought to yourself after watching that scene and thought, ‘So, how exactly does that work?’

Watching HEAT training camp isn’t all too dissimilar.

There may be no two words shouted more often on a given day at camp than, “Hey, Dan.” The Dan in question is video coordinator Dan Bisaccio, who holds the role of trying to keep score as the team runs through the many variations on its Hunger Games drill. That’s not hard, you might think. Thousands upon thousands of people around the world run a scoreboard without much of a problem.

But all those scoreboard operators are doing their job by the book. Bisaccio has to adhere to Spo Rules – on any given day a layup might be worth one, two or three points, an offensive rebound might be negative two and teams are rewarded based on whether or not the ball ever touches the paint. The rules don’t just change by the day, they might change by the minute.

“A lot of it is me walking into the middle of a conversation and hearing, ‘Oh, we’re doing four points for that? Hold on, I got to make sure I remember,” Bisaccio says with a laugh. “But you have to just go with it because you’re going to have one of the coaches saying it was this, one of the players saying it was for sure not that and then one of the guys in the stands saying, ‘Actually, it *was* that.’

“Sometimes I have to raise my hand and say I don’t know what the call is . . . knowing full well, and Spo loves this, they’re going to yell at me regardless. Whether it’s right or wrong, you just laugh with them and go with it.”

What we haven’t mentioned yet is that this isn’t a regular scrimmage. There are 15 players in the drill. Three teams rotating in and out of play. Five-on-five-on-five. Now think for a moment about what a normal scoreboard looks like. There’s HOME and GUEST, or some variation. Those are the teams wearing white and black jerseys. The red team? Their points go in the FOULS box, but those boxes don’t go into double digits, so Bisaccio has to combine the two FOULS boxes. Black might have 14. White might have 11. But Red has 10+2.

Unless one team has 99.“Everybody says, ’99???’ But no, it’s just minus one if you’re at zero,” Bisaccio says.

There is a method to the madness. It’s not Calvinball. Each set of rules has a purpose. If Spoelstra is trying to emphasize efficiency, then three and layups are both worth three points while mid-range two-pointers are going to be worth one.

“If you just tell them, ‘Hey, be efficient’ but you don’t change the scale or change the way you score it, they’re just going to do the same thing,” says Bisaccio. “But if all the sudden you give more points for the shots we want, like a layup or a three, all the sudden their best competitive edge comes out because they want all those points.”

“The players all just think it’s me making stuff up. But we all meet as a staff and talk about it.”

Things don’t always go perfectly. On a particularly defensive-oriented day at Training Camp, paint touches are the emphasis. Last year Miami was one of the best teams in the league at keeping the ball out of the paint despite regularly playing undersized, and on this day you score with stops. If you get a stop while keeping the ball out of the paint the entire time, that’s three points. Otherwise, stops are only worth one. Problem is, half the team thought you scored by getting the ball into the paint on offense. Yelling ensues. Play continues. Bisaccio looks to assistant coaches Anthony Carter and Chris Quinn. They’ve been doing this for so long that can communicate non-verbally. One thumbs up from Bisaccio later, after a couple digits change on the board, and everything is back on track.“It always goes back to the fact that we want to put some points of emphasis out there so that the players know, regardless of how they’re competing, we’re working towards getting better for what we want to do in a game. It’s not just about [winning the drill],” Bisaccio said.In the end, someone does win. The horn sounds. Winners get water. The losing teams head to the baseline to run. Everyone, even if just for half an hour, has had their brain rewired just enough to get across Spoelstra’s points for the day, all done in typical Spoelstra fashion – through competition.&nbsp;And Bisaccio gets to look forward to the “regular” days when only threes are threes and all twos count the same.

First-round picks are always fun for the fanbase. They’re young. They’re new. They’re exciting. And Nikola Jović, selected No. 27 out of Serbia last June, is no exception. He’s 6-foot-10. He can shoot. He can handle. He’s athletic. The skillset is all there, on paper, and he might be the most natural, modern power forward on a roster that is trying to fill the power forward spot.He also just turned 19 years old a couple weeks before the draft, and he’s trying to learn the HEAT’s many schemes and systems while getting to know a team that has been together for years. No easy task for a young player in any workplace, much less one where you have to prove yourself physically.&nbsp;

So if it seems odd that you might not have heard much about Jović yet, it’s because this is just the beginning of his process.“He just needs to continue to embrace the routine,” Spoelstra said when asked about the potential of Jović earning minutes down the road this season. “That’s all it is right now. I’m not even evaluating him because he is being fed through a firehose. Everything he’s trying to learn, all the workouts he’s doing, the film study, the chalk talks. It can be overwhelming for a young player, particularly someone who hasn’t played in this league.&nbsp;

“You want to have some patience with the process. He is making progress. I can see it. His capacity for work is getting better. His ability to understand schematics is improving. Skillset is improving. He’s unique because of his size. He’s extremely versatile. He has a lot of good offensive skills that we’ll be able to apply. Defensively he’s learning our system. As you can imagine that is probably taking up a lot of his mental space, that stress of accountability to our defense.”

It doesn’t sound like we should expect Jović to be in the rotation early on, but nobody should have been expecting that regardless. The talent is there. The opportunities will come. NEXT IN LINE?

It is extremely early to be talking about this. Earlier than early. But every year a player or two pops in training camp. Not in the way that they’re going to suddenly be playing 20 minutes a game – in the way that you might just be hearing their name a little more often months down the road. That’s how things often start for Miami’s future undrafted success stories. A few nice plays here and there. Steady hands. Solid days. Enough to make a coach see you.

When asked in The Bahamas who among the younger players had popped in his eyes, Spoelstra – who missed the first day of camp to be at the birth of his daughter – had one name in mind.

“Dru Smith is significantly improved over the last 12 months,” he said. “That’s enjoyable to see. He’s a different player right now, he’s mature, he feels more confident, he feels more poised in how to play in our program. And now you’re starting to see how he can impact winning.”Spoelstra mentions 12 months because Smith was actually in camp last season. He even played for the Sioux Falls Skyforce, though – in a story somewhat similar to what Gabe Vincent went through the past two seasons – Smith says he felt a step slower wearing a large knee brace. Now, with the brace off and a surgical procedure behind him, he finally feels healthy.

“I think [I’m] just getting more comfortable honestly,” Smith said. “Having been in it for a year, having a better feel for how things work. Not trying to do anything spectacular, just trying to play within myself. Just be a solid guy.

“The way I played coming up through college is very similar to the way that they play. Defensive oriented, gritty, tough, nothing too flashy just get the job done. I don’t think I have to change much about my game.”

In just eight games with Sioux Falls, Smith, a 6-foot-3 guard, had quite a balanced line. In 32 minutes, he averaged 14.5 points, 4.1 rebounds, 3.0 assists, 1.9 steals and 1.3 blocks, posting a true-shooting percentage of 57.1 on a 20 percent usage rate. As he puts it, he’s a “jack of all trades”.&nbsp;

For now, we just have to wait. Wait for Monday’s Red, White and Pink game. Wait for the preseason. Wait for minutes. You would expect Smith to be back with Sioux Falls this season with the roster as loaded as it currently is, but pay attention when you hear his name in the coming weeks. He caught Spoelstra’s eye. Maybe he’ll catch yours, too.

You never know, he could be the next man up.&nbsp;

“There are so many guys on this roster, undrafted guys, guys that they developed,” Smith said. “I’m very thankful to be in this spot with this organization because they have a track record of developing guys like that.”TIDBITS-Duncan Robinson feels a bit like the forgotten man at the moment when it comes to the battle for a starting spot, but it’s worth reminding everyone that he has a couple of the best high-volume shooting seasons under his belt and from December 3 on was back to his regular 40 percent from three – still taking some of the toughest threes in the league, as measured by Second Spectrum’s Shot Quality, because of how often he shoots off movement. This was an interesting quote from this week about how he’s put that early season slump behind him:

“[With my] mechanics there’s some little things, especially when you’re in those moments where the ball not feeling quite right and ways to deal with that. Now it’s easy to say this, but it’s a good thing having gone through it because it prepares you going forward.”

-While the starting lineup is easily the biggest question mark with this team right now, none of the incumbent starters – Lowry, Butler and Adebayo – shared much of an opinion in any direction with regards to what players or even what skillsets might be the best fit. Expect Spoelstra to be in full experimentation mode for the next couple of weeks:

“You have to take a look at different combinations just to see what they look like against competition,” Spoelstra said. “I like the fact that we have these different lineups we can get to, the big lineup, the speed lineup, the shooting lineup. You’ll see a decent amount of those.”

-When Coolio passed away on September 28, the HEAT ran their warmup laps with Gangsta’s Paradise blaring through speakers at practice the next morning.

-Victor Oladipo’s newest single, Symphony, was released on Friday. You can find it streaming on both Apple Music and Spotify.

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Coup’s Notebook Vol. 26: The Toughest Job At Training Camp, Checking In On Nikola Jović, The Next Developmental Project And Spoelstra In The Lab

Drafted No. 14 in 2017, Bam Adebayo has grown from a single-digit scorer his first two seasons to an All-Star, someone capable of scoring 19 a game or dropping 31 on the road in the Eastern Conference Finals and a three-time All-Defensive Second Team honoree. But every year more is asked of him, so we sat down with Adebayo to find out what he’s asking of himself and what kind of player he wants to become – not just the player everyone thinks he should be.

What follows is a conversation from Miami HEAT training camp in The Bahamas.&nbsp;

Couper Moorhead: Now that you’ve had some time to sit with the Boston series and reflect on how it played out, what has stuck with you as a takeaway for you personally?

Bam Adebayo:&nbsp;That I can lead my team to victory. I’ve done that before. I’ve seen it, I’ve done it, I’ve lived it. The biggest thing about it is being more consistent with that type of mentality. Putting myself in position to help my teammates win. Once you tally all of that through an 82-game season, you get into the playoffs and it’s second nature.

So that Game 3 in Boston especially has lingered in your mind?

Yeah, just locking into that mentality. Game 7 also. Just having that mentality of going, going, going. There is no stopping me. It’s my will. Putting that mindset forward, it helps my teammates out and it helps the team.

In many of your big scoring games, as far as field-goal attempts, Brooklyn a couple years ago, Jimmy not playing in the second half of Game 3, when guys are out has that pushed you to do things that may not always come naturally?

Whenever our main guys go out, especially when it’s Jimmy, the next person they look at is me. Being that example and knowing I can be that example all the time. I’m just trying to be more consistent in that regard.

It’s felt like for years everyone, fair or not, has been after you to be this guy. Telling you to be more aggressive. And nobody has ever really asked you if you wanted to be more aggressive or if it even comes naturally to you. Has it ever felt like you’re trying to force this?

No, but I just feel like people who don’t know basketball can’t say nothing to me, so I don’t listen to them anyway.

Oh, 100 percent. But if you’ve never been out there going up and down the court, you can’t tell me what I need to do or what I can’t do. It makes no sense. I block it out. I’m focused on my team. The 15 and the coaches.

When you talk about locking into that mentality, that aggressive mentality, what does that look like to you?

Just listening to UD and Jimmy and watching film, you get the sense of how you can manipulate the game. Everybody just thinks it’s coming down and shooting shots. Nah. I’m going to manipulate the game. So then people will say, ‘How did he get 25 and 10?’ because it doesn’t look like it. I feel like that’s the best way to do it because then nobody can scout it because it’s random.

In the past, and please tell me if this is wrong, but watching you there has sometimes been a toggle. There’s you trying to get your shots and then there’s the natural playmaker Bam. Do you feel like you’re now slowly putting those two modes of you together so you can be both within a single possession?

Yeah. Putting those together. That’s the part of my growth, that’s my summer. You get time to reflect, look back, evaluate and embrace the good and the bad of the past season. For me, I did pass up on a lot of shots. But that was just me in the mindset of trying to get my team moving the ball when we’re too stagnant. You hear it in practice enough, you’re like, ‘Alright, let me just buy in to what our coaches want us to do which is move the ball.’ Just mixing that in and seeing myself be the best version of me and I feel like I can do that.

Much of the time, at least in playoff games with detailed schemes but sometimes in the regular season, when you, and the same is often true of Jimmy, when you go off you’re in some way or another being single covered because the defense is so worried about the shooters. Is the greatest leap possible for you becoming a guy who draws consistent double teams, changing the complexion of this team’s offense?

My goal is just to be one of those players who you just have to respect. *snaps fingers* You have to respect everything he does off the catch. He’s coming up the court you have to have an eye on him. My goal is to just be one of those guys who is random. My first three buckets might be offensive rebound putbacks, and then the next two might be trail threes, the next two might be elbow jumpers. One might be a lob. You add that all together and it’s up to 20 points. Manipulating the game to a sense where it looks random.

You mention those threes. Whether you want to take those or not, that’s best left up to you, but what is interesting is what level do you think you would have to get to in order for teams to respect you as a shooter? To close out hard on you?

It’s going to come a time when it’s going to have to change. If you’re going to let me shoot and I’m going to make them, you’re going to have to respect it. Obviously, the word starts to get out, the snowball effect.

Right. So he makes two. He makes two. He makes two [again]. So teams [start to say], ‘Alright, he’s a sticker from the top of the key.’ Then they close that out. Now I’m in the corner, ‘He’s a sticker in the corner.’ It’s growth in my game because if you can’t shoot nobody is going to respect that, obviously. But when you start making a couple, dudes are going to start thinking in the back of their minds, ‘He can make this shot now.’

Years ago we talked at your first Summer League about your role models and you brought up Kevin Garnett, who you’ve mentioned many times since then. There’s two different version of KG though, right? There’s Minnesota KG and there’s Boston KG. The way you play here feels a lot more like Boston KG because he had so much more talent around him. He didn’t have to take 18-20 shots a game. Now that you’re established in the league, do you feel like you’ve hit that KG level as far as your impact on the game.&nbsp;

Impact on the game, for sure. Older KG, because he won. Younger KG, he had chances but he was willing his team taking 27-28 shots . . . and that was somewhat because he didn’t have enough talent. I’m trying to be a mix of young KG with that ambition, that grind, that grit, and then the older KG in terms of impacting winning, pushing your teammates to the W and raising that trophy and yelling ‘Anything is possible.’ I feel like I can be both in one.

The conversation of whether you’re a four or a five always feels reminiscent of Tim Duncan, who is either a center or quote-unquote the Greatest Power Forward of All-Time. Of course everything is positionless now, but in the context of the history of the game do you feel like you can go either way in that discussion? Can you even do that in the modern era?

In the modern era it’s really positionless. Me and Giannis Antetokounmpo could both [be playing] center. But he has Brook Lopez. If he didn’t have Lopez he would technically be a center.

When they had P.J. Tucker he often was, same as you last year.

Exactly. It just varies. It’s positionless at this point in the modern NBA.

Why does Defensive Player of the Year seem to matter to you so much?

Just because I came into the league as a defensive guy. That’s how I got onto the court. That’s how I made my name. It started with that first clip of me defending Steph [Curry] and it just took off from there. To the point where Spo would put me on the primary scorer – one game he would say, ‘We’re playing Houston, you’re starting on Russell [Westbrook]’. Next game in L.A. he’d put me on Kawhi Leonard or PG [Paul George]. It was just building that trust to where I could, in my mind, be Defensive Player of the Year. In my mind, I’ve proved that.

The argument last year [when Marcus Smart won the award] was that giving it to a guard meant giving it to someone who actually guarded all positions. So you could certainly say the argument for the guy who eventually won it applied the same to you?

I feel like I’m damn near the only guy. Me, and I give Draymond [Green] and probably Giannis, three guys who can literally guard 1-through-5 and be effective. Switch on to a Kyrie. Switch onto KD. Switch onto Joel Embiid. The thing about guards winning it is they don’t be down there. They don’t be in that semi-circle.

They might be, but they’re taking charges or going for swipes.

I just mean from a politics standpoint. I’m going to always go for the award. I’m never going to give up on anything that I set my mind to. It’s set in stone. Listen, the man next to me [Adebayo nods his head toward Udonis Haslem, who is standing about 10 feet away] never got any credit for how great he was on defense.

Haslem, overhearing this while looking at his phone: “That is true.”

You know what I’m saying? The man next to me is guarding Dirk [Nowitzki] in the Finals and giving him problems and never getting any recognition from that.

Haslem, nodding, still looking at his phone: “That’s a very good point.”

That’s the underdog mentality. From my point of view, I’m going to make them watch me. You have to see me. When we get on these National Television games, that’s the point of having them. You want to see young talent.

That takes us to how you think you can win it. Often, at least perception wise when it comes to voters, the way to win anything once you’re really in the conversation is to find that next level to make everyone around the country see you as the deserving winner.&nbsp;So what do you think is the next defensive level you can hit?

I thought it was when I was guarding point guards…

You’ve been doing that since your rookie year. For other people that might be normal for you.

Exactly, but that’s the thing. It’s extraordinary because nobody else is doing it. You don’t see a lot of guys, they’ll switch, they’ll guard the guard, then you throw the lob and they run back and get the block. That’s not normal. It’s just because I’m god gifted and he’s blessed me with this ability to do it every so often and make it look easy. But my goal is to win it. One of these days [they’re] going to look and be like well, ‘He’s been doing this over here for far too long, this is your chance now.’

That’s right. I don’t want it honorary. Nah. Imma win this s***. Last year they said it was because of my missed games. But if you look at the stats. My stats are up there with everyone else. I missed X amount of games but my stats are damn near everyone else’s, and you’re going to tell me I can’t win it? And then I’m not a finalist, or First Team [All Defense]? *Adebayo waves his hand* 

Before we go, at the end of this year, what is a successful season for you? We know what the team wants to do, but what are your personal goals?

DPOY. All-Star. All-NBA. I feel like I have that type of ability, that type of blessed talent to do that in a season. It’s not going to be easy. Because nobody is watching us. Nobody wants to talk about us.

Training Camp

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The 36 Chambers Of Spoelstra: The Key To Miami’s Offense Lies In Mastering The Details

2023-24 Camp Preview: 21 Players, 21 Questions

Quotables From Baha Mar: The Miami HEAT Enjoy Six Days In Paradise

Coup’s Notebook Vol. 26: The Toughest Job At Training Camp, Checking In On Nikola Jović, The Next Developmental Project And Spoelstra In The Lab

What’s Next For Bam Adebayo?

Caleb Martin Bet On Himself And It Paid Off, Now He Has A Chance To Be A Starter On A Contender That Needs Him

The Good Fight: The HEAT Open Camp With Two Starting Spots Open And Plenty Of Players, Including Tyler Herro And Victor Oladipo, Putting Their Hats In The Ring