In our ongoing Bold Prediction series, we’ll go through the Miami Heat roster and make one prediction for their coming season. Next up is Duncan Robinson.
Duncan Robinson got himself a guaranteed pay-day for the rest of the season this summer, albeit for the NBA’s minimum salary of $1.4 million. Plenty of players on that pay scale would love to get that amount locked in, however, so it’s one less thing for him to worry about as next season nears for both him and the Miami Heat.
Last season he bounced back and forth between the Heat and their G-League affiliate, the Sioux Falls Skyforce. He played 15 games with the Heat, averaging just 10.7 minutes per game, but he thrived with the Skyforce.
With Sioux Falls, he played 33 games and averaged 21.4 points per game while shooting 51.2 percent from the field and 48.3 percent from 3-point range on 9.8 shots from behind the arc per game.
This leads us to our bold prediction for Duncan Robinson.
In 2019-20, Duncan Robinson will spend more time with the Miami Heat than with the Sioux Falls Skyforce
The Heat are a team in desperate need of production from their cheaper roster members. Thanks to the sign-and-trade that brought Jimmy Butler to Miami and triggered the hard cap, the Heat were strapped for flexibility to acquire talent and relied on their own players on cheap and minimum contracts, like Duncan Robinson.
The Heat were impressed with his performance this summer and last season in the G-League to the point where they guaranteed his contract early, and that’s a reliable indicator that they intend to give him a shot at contributing on a meaningful level.
As a result, Robinson should be expected to spend more time with the Heat than with the Skyforce as head coach Erik Spoelstra looks to find ways to get him in action.
Last season the Heat were a well-below average shooting team, shooting the 10th-worst 3-point shooting percentage in the league at 34.9 percent, and Robinson’s injection into the rotation could pay dividends for them while he looks to better his own contractual situation next year and down the road as well.