The Miami Heat‘s guard Tyler Herro was uncharacteristically unproductive offensively during their 110-86 Game 4 win over the Atlanta Hawks, scoring three points in 21 minutes of play. But he’s been the team’s most consistent scorer all season and there’s little doubt he’ll bounce back in what could be the series-clincher on Tuesday, April 26.
The 22-year-old has made the most of his new role as the first player off the bench, becoming the clear front-runner to win the 2022 NBA’s Sixth Man of the Year award. Following the All-Star break, Herro finished the final 20 games of the season averaging 22.4 points per game, shooting 50% from the field and 46% from beyond the arc.
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Tyler Herro has 10 points in the 2nd quarter 🔥
While numerous analysts believe Herro’s sky-high potential will earn him a max contract following the 2022-23 season, NBA Insider Steve Bulpett exclusively told Heavy.com‘s Sean Deveney, that such an expectation is the guard’s agent flying too close to the sun. Bulpett fully expects the Heat to secure Herro in Miami, but he doesn’t see the franchise offering him a max extension or any other team for that matter:
I don’t think he is a max guy. A player is worth what he can get in the market. Do I see someone else giving him max money? I don’t. But I think you have to look at it not just in the basketball sense of what he can do for you but what he is as an asset. The best way to present him as an asset is to lock him up, get him under a contract, give him real money.
Once you’ve got him under a contract like that, he becomes an asset, he becomes a tradeable asset. There will always be a market for him. The smart thing to do with him, and I fully expect this from the Heat, is to lock him up.
The Heat Making Herro a Restricted Free Agent May ‘Sour the Relationship’
Deveney notes that he doesn’t envy “the general managers and front offices who have to make these decisions on guys like Tyler Herro, where you’ve got to look at three years, where you’ve seen growth and the guy has gotten to where he is averaging 20 points but everything else is a little above average, nothing great but certainly there is room for more growth there, and you’ve got to make a decision on a contract extension three years in.”
While restricted free agency is an option, “Teams don’t like to do that,” Deveney explains. “They feel like it does sap the confidence of players and maybe sour the relationship a little bit.”
Eastern Conference Exec Says Herro Can Expect to See a $90- $100 Million Extension, Not a Max
Tyler Herro is eligible for a full max extension after the season, per t.co/V8oAv8Fbji
2023-24: $31,750,000
2024-25: $34,290,000
2025-26: $36,830,000
2026-27: $39,370,000
2027-28: $41,910,000
Total: Five years, $184,150,000
Herro will be eligible for a max extension once his rookie contract expires, but after Miami gave six-time All-Star Jimmy Butler a four-year, $184 million extension in August, the Heat will likely be too hard against the cap to do so.
An Eastern Conference executive told Heavy that while the timing may be off for Herro to get a max next summer, he will still get the bag:
With the extension they gave Butler (last summer) there is no way he gets the max. I am sure Herro’s people will push for it but more realistic is something like what Jaylen Brown or Buddy Hield got a couple of years ago, four years and $90-100 million.
It would be hard for him to turn that down. It might be just a three-year deal so he could go back to free agency quickly, if he thinks he can do better in a short amount of time.
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NBA Insider on Heat Guard: ‘No Way He Gets the Max’ [EXCLUSIVE]