Miami Heat: The Athletic values Duncan Robinson at $24 million

It’s no secret that Duncan Robinson is a crucial part of the Miami Heat offense. His three-point shooting has transformed the way they run their offense over the past two years.

Erik Spoelstra is constantly drawing up plays to get him open looks. As good as Jimmy Butler and Bam Adebayo are, Robinson’s shooting could be considered just as important.

Last season, he accounted for 26.8% of the team’s total three-point makes. If his shots and makes were subtracted from the team’s total, the Miami Heat would have shot nearly 2% worse from deep as a whole.

Robinson will be a restricted free agent this offseason, so re-signing him should be a top priority. With that in mind, how much should he expect to get paid?

John Hollinger of The Athletic has recently been ranking the top free agents this offseason in order of “BORD$.” This is his ranking which stands for “Big Ol’ Rating Dollars” and calculates how much each free agent is worth.

According to his formula, Robinson is worth roughly $24 million per season. This would be a steep price to pay for the Miami Heat.

Hollinger’s explanation for the high cost begins with Robinson’s super-efficient three-point shooting. In fact, he’s shooting the ball at a historical clip.

“The key is how insanely efficient Robinson is with his fairly infrequent shots. Robinson’s career true shooting percentage of 65.1 is the best of all time for a perimeter player, and it’s the best by a huge margin; Stephen Curry is next on the list at 62.5.”

Despite the seemingly astronomical price, the Miami Heat would still be able to use their cap space before re-signing Robinson. They would have to be very careful about the order in which they do things, though.

This idea is also explained by Hollinger when detailing how the Heat could retain him. He goes over how they would be able to sign free agents and also bring back Robinson.

“Finally, Miami has a strong incentive to re-sign Robinson at any number. The interesting wrinkle with Robinson’s free agency is that he only counts $4.7 million against the Heat’s cap. As a result, the Heat can use their $24 million or so in cap room on another player and then come back and re-sign Robinson once they’ve used their room.”

It will be interesting to see what teams try to lure Robinson away from South Beach this offseason. There will surely be a huge market for someone who’s as good of a shooter as he is.

At the same time, though, the Miami Heat will do everything in their power to keep him around. If they lose him, there will be a serious lack of three-point shooting on the roster.

Robinson has said that team fit will be the most important thing to him this offseason. Hopefully, he still believes that team is the Miami Heat.