Miami Heat Continue Wheeling and Dealing; Sign Garrett Temple
By John Friel
In a move that’s offset the previous non-guaranteed signings of Mickell Gladness and Jarvis Varnado, the Miami Heat have expanded their horizons with the signing of 6’6″ guard Garrett Temple.
April 8, 2011; Miami, FL, USA; Charlotte Bobcats guard Garrett Temple (41) dunks the ball past Miami Heat center Joel Anthony (50) during the first half at American Airlines Arena. Mandatory Credit: Steve Mitchell-US PRESSWIRE
Temple has been in the league since 2009 and has already played with five different teams in the Houston Rockets, Sacramento Kings, San Antonio Spurs, Milwaukee Bucks and his most recent stint with the Charlotte Bobcats. In the 2010-’11 season, Temple played 24 games amongst three different teams, before finishing up in Charlotte. In 12 games with the Bobcats, Temple mostly received garbage-time minutes and hardly got on the court.
Temple missed the entire 2011-’12 season as he was unable to find a team. He recently played five games with the Cleveland Cavaliers in their summer league, starting in three. However, his impact was little as he averaged a mere 4 points, 2 rebounds and 1.2 assists, while shooting only 29 percent from the field and 11 percent from beyond the arc. He failed to play in 20 minutes in any of the five games he played, eventually resulting in him being cut by the Cavaliers.
The best numbers of Temple’s career came in 13 games with the Spurs, where he would average 6.2 points per on 43 percent shooting. He would play 15 minutes per, but was cut after only playing in three games the next season. From there, he would sign two ten-day contracts with Milwaukee, the sign two more ten-day contracts with Charlotte and would finish the season with them.
The team didn’t pick up his contract, and neither did any other NBA team. Temple now joins Gladness, Varnado, Terrel Harris and Robert Dozier as players who have been signed to non-guaranteed deals with the Heat over the past week. Miami is currently on the lookout for two players to finalize their roster heading into the October 30th season opener against Boston.
They can bring 20 players into training camp. With so much of an initiative to sign a center, Temple will have to impress the Heat coaching staff immensely if they want to bring him aboard. The team is already smitten with Terrel Harris, he was a part of the championship team after all, so it only means that Temple is going to need to put together the type of performance that led five different NBA teams to see some sort of potential lying within.
Miami invites Temple possibly because of the concern of age and injury at the two position. The Heat’s current depth chart at the two has Dwyane Wade starting and then Ray Allen, James Jones and Mike Miller as backups. All of those players are over the age of 30 and three of them are coming off of an injury-plagued 2011-’12 campaign. Obviously, Miami would like to have some insurance in the form of a 26-year-old who could be there when needed.