The Miami Heat has the reputation of being the NBA team that can always take the unwanted players around the league and then create value in them to add them to their rotation. There have been multiple undrafted players to play important roles on the Heat, for example, Kendrick Nunn stepping up as an undrafted rookie to help the Heat make the 2020 NBA Finals.
This ability lets the Heat have top-heavy rosters with the right players around the stars, as these low draft picks or undrafted players tend to do what will ensure their survival in the league and what they are best at. The Heat roster is full of players like these, but is it a bad thing?
The Heat end up spending a lot of money to retain their undrafted talent while also continuously finding new talent in those positions. Duncan Robinson getting nearly $100 million over 5 years and then losing his spot in the rotation to Max Strus has hurt the Heat’s trade flexibility. NBA analyst Amin Elhassan ripped into them for their poor roster decision on ‘The Dan Le Batard Show’.
“This is my thing about Duncan Robinson: Miami is the organization where they pick up pebbles and say, “Huh? Oh, this is a diamond!” And they do this all the time, but since they do this all the time, why would they ever pay market price for a diamond? You’re finding them everywhere. The list is 25 years long, basically since Pat Riley has been here: I’ll go back to guys like Voshon Lenard and Ike [Isaac] Austin. They found guys that nobody wanted, polished them up, made them into rotation guys.”
Elhassan added, “Why pay them? You fell in love with your own bullshit. Heat Culture and all that. Hassan Whiteside. Dion Waiters. James Johnson. You can put Duncan Robinson on that list. And the irony is this: While they did this with Duncan Robinson, what happened? They found Max Strus, they polished him up, and he beat Duncan Robinson for the same role.”
Developing talent is never a bad thing, so the Heat haven’t made a mistake here by finding as many options as they have. The contract they gave Robinson was in line with the contracts that shooters like Joe Harris and Davis Bertans had gotten, all contracts that people now look at as bad contracts.
Hopefully, the Heat can fix their ongoing roster issues as they try to make a splash by trading for Donovan Mitchell. In any trade like that, Robinson will probably be a contract that the Heat have to send, something that may count against them because of the years left on that deal.
