Getty Duncan Robinson and head coach Erik Spoelstra of the Miami Heat.
A proposed offseason trade would see the Miami Heat drop forward Duncan Robinson, freeing the team from the eyebrow-raising five-year, $90 million contract it offered last year to a player whose performance has fallen short of expectations.
In a June 2 article proposing 13 trades that would include each of the 28 teams not in the NBA Finals, Bleacher Report’s Dan Favale linked the Miami Heat to a deal with the Houston Rockets in exchange for veteran guard Eric Gordon.
Robinson’s ‘Gravitational Pull’ & Gordon’s Dependability
Favale’s proposed trade has the Heat receiving shooting guard and small forward Eric Gordon and sending Robinson to the Houston Rockets along with a “2023 first-round pick (top-eight protection; turns into two seconds if not conveyed)” and a “2026 second-round pick (via Miami, least favorable from Dallas, OKC and Philadelphia).”
“Shooters with gravitational pull have utility no matter how steep their contract,” Favale wrote, noting that Robinson, 28, is still owed nearly $75 million in guaranteed money.
Despite his down year in shooting, Robinson would provide a source of “competent, high-volume outside shooting” for the young Rockets. Favale wrote that Robinson’s presence could “help streamline [the] developmental curves” of players like Alperen Sengun, Josh Christopher, Kevin Porter Jr. and Jalen Green, all of whom are between 19 and 22 years old.
Robinson is three years removed from a season in which his 3-point percentage of 44.6% outpaced the league average of 34.1%. Still, “for all Robinson’s struggles, he ranked inside the top five of BBall Index’s pull-up three-point shot-making metric among players who logged at least 1,000 minutes,” Favale wrote.
Meanwhile, Gordon would “deepen [Miami’s] options in the half-court, and he’s a dependable outside shooter who puts physical pressure on the basket,” Favale wrote. The drawbacks to Gordon are his age (33), his extensive injury history and the $19.6 million he will be owed in 2022-23.
But Gordon “could be worth it” for the Heat, Favale wrote. “He was among 79 players who attempted at least 200 field goals off drives this past season—his 57.8 percent clip ranked fourth, trailing only Chris Paul, Karl-Anthony Towns and Giannis Antetokounmpo.”
Erik Spoelstra: ‘We Pride Ourselves on Being Able to Find Different Solutions to Win’
Robinson once seemed a beacon of what Heat culture could do for player development. The Heat signed the undrafted University of Michigan graduate in 2018 and developed him into one of the premier three-point shooters in the league. Four years later, by the time the postseason arrived, he was “almost entirely out of the Heat’s rotation,” Favale wrote. Head coach Erik Spoelstra believed that the forward they signed to the largest contract ever awarded to an undrafted free agent wasn’t giving them the best chance to win.
In late March, Spoelstra opted to start Max Strus over Robinson. Strus’ introduction resulted in a six-game win streak in April, which Heat rode all the way to the Eastern Conference finals against the Boston Celtics.
Robinson was also absent for many of the Heat’s playoff rotation minutes, a move that led some to criticize Spoelstra. Asked during a May 8 press conference whether he thought about adding Robinson to games in which they struggled from deep, Spoelstra said, “I did, yeah. And then obviously right now you look at the percentage, that’s an easy conclusion. We still had still some good looks. … We have great 3-point shooters on this team. … We pride ourselves on being able to find different solutions to win.”