Getty Pat Riley, Miami Heat
It’s been that kind of year for Duncan Robinson, the Heat’s ace shooter who has not done a particularly good job of, you know, making shots. Just as he put together his best game of the young NBA season, a 26-point showing against the Wizards in which he went 8-for-16 from the 3-point line last Tuesday, Robinson became another COVID-19 protocol-ee for the Heat.
As it stands, Robinson could come back later this week, but he’s entered the 2022 calendar year with subpar stats, averaging 11.6 points and 3.0 rebounds in 28.5 minutes. Worse, he is shooting 38.0% from the field and 34.6% from the 3-point line, slightly below the NBA’s average of 34.9%.
All this would not sting so bad except that Pat Riley and Co. just gave Robinson a rather healthy new deal, worth $90 million over five years. His struggles raise the question: Would someone else have paid Robinson that kind of contract if the Heat had not made him a priority?
Asked how many teams would have given Robinson that contract, in fact, one team insider had a direct answer: “Plenty.”
Other Perimeter Sharpshooters Got Similar Deals as Robinson
That’s from longtime beat writer Ira Winderman, writing in the Sun-Sentinel. As he put it:
Plenty, based on how free agency went a year earlier with Joe Harris, Davis Bertans, Bogdan Bogdanovic, and other elite shooters, were paid in free agency. So enough with relitigating Duncan Robinson’s five-year, $90 million deal. That was the market. It is a contact that still could provide value, and a contract that is eminently moveable if needed.
Winderman is right in that Robinson’s contract is comparable to other top shooters in the league, at $18 million per year. Harris got a four-year, $75 million contract ($18.75 million per year), Bertans got five years and $80 million ($16 million per year) and Bogdanovic got four years and $72 million ($18 million per year).
The Knicks are one team that surely would have been willing to spend on Robinson. Instead, they gave a four-year, $73 million contract to Evan Fournier, worth $18.25 million per year. Fournier and Robinson entered the season with remarkably similar numbers so it is fair to say that Robinson would have gotten much the same from New York.
It’s worth pointing out, too, that the final year of Robinson’s contract is only half-guaranteed. The Heat could opt out of the deal and pay Robinson a little more than $9 million that year.
Robinson’s Contract Is Easily Tradeable
While the contract is a done deal now and looking at it through the lens of revisionist history is pointless, Winderman does bring up the one salient point that should matter to the Heat and the team’s fans going forward: It is an “eminently tradeable” deal for Miami.
A truly bad contract is one that is nearly impossible to move on the trade market, one that can only be resolved with a buyout or some other drastic measure. We’ve seen those in recent years, with teams eating the deals of underperforming players—Andre Drummond in Cleveland, LaMarcus Aldridge in San Antonio, Blake Griffin in Detroit, John Wall now in Houston.
Robinson is not in that situation. He has struggled with his shooting but if the Heat were to put out feelers on a trade for him, they’d get plenty of offers. But they’re not looking to deal away Robinson any time soon.