How Shannon Brown Fits in with the Miami Heat

For the Miami Heat, the trend of signing guys who were relevant 3-4 years ago continues.

The Heat announced Wednesday that the club has signed guard Shannon Brown. The deal is for the veteran minimum at $1.3 million for the year, according to USA Today’s Sam Amick. The Heat roster now stands at 16. Teams can carry up to 20 players for training camp, and a maximum of 15 players for the regular season.

Brown figures to compete for a backup guard spot behind Dwyane Wade. He’ll be judged against the likes of Reggie Williams and Tyler Johnson.

More from Heat News

• NBA 2K24 Ratings: Takeaways and reactions to Miami Heat player ratings
• Miami Heat’s Nikola Jovic gives entire world reason to love him
• 1 Advantage the Heat have over every Southeast Division team
• Three former first-round picks the Miami Heat should take a chance on
• Former NBA exec says Trail Blazers should take Heat’s Tyler Herro in Damian Lillard trade

Sure, Miami was linked to presently relevant players such as Jordan Crawford, Chris Douglas-Roberts, Toure’ Murry (who signed with the Utah Jazz) and Leandro Barbosa.* Brown seemingly reached from 2011-2013, when he played nearly 23 minutes per game and averaged 11 and 10.5 points per game in two seasons with the Phoenix Suns. He spent the 2014 season with the San Antonio Spurs and New York Knicks.

But he used to do things like this.

And he once dunked on Chris Andersen. I wonder if he’ll remind Birdman of that.

With a sub-par career true shooting percentage of 50.3 percent, Brown isn’t necessarily an efficient shooter. But he does a decent job attacking the rim. Check out his shot charts from the last three seasons, via NylonCalculus.com.

The Heat will run a lot of sets out the horns formation–placing both big men an opposite sides in the high post–with Chris Bosh and Josh McRoberts stretching the defense to make room for Dwyane Wade to attack the rim and create from the post in LeBron-like fashion.

The idea behind signing Brown is likely that of him being able to do things off the dribble, something many current Heat players struggle with.**

While the 28-year-old may have plateaued, the only other player the Heat reportedly looked at who can attack the basket is Crawford. Crawford is known as an inconsistent player who doesn’t really have a position–he struggles with his outside shot and isn’t a good facilitator–and that could have been a problem the Heat didn’t want to recruit.

The team could have signed another three-point shooter like Barbosa, but already has Williams. It would have been nice to Chris Otto-Rocket in a Heat uniform but he doesn’t offer much outside of plus on-ball defense.

For the veteran minimum, it’s not a bad flyer to take. I mean, Gregg Popovich saw enough in him last season to give him a try for 10 games. If I were a betting man, I might just put my money down on Brown and Reggie Williams making the team with Johnson hitting the D-League.

*Okay, Barbosa isn’t exactly relevant now either.

**Ehem, Danny Granger.