Set to make his Heat debut in October, Miami will need every minute of production from one of the league’s premier lead guards. Lowry’s role will not only be to alleviate pressure from Jimmy and Bam, but to make everyone else around him that much better.
However, a concern going forward will be how the Heat will allocate the former Raptors guard’s minutes, as Lowry is months away from turning 36 years old. And appearing in just 46 games last season — which included foot, thumb, and other various injuries — Lowry was in-and-out of a Raptors lineup that struggled to reach .500 for the majority of the year.
Once mathematically eliminated towards the end of last season, the Raptors would shut Lowry down for the remaining seven games. Although an unsuccessful attempt, it was understandable for Lowry to play high-level minutes (whenever he was available) to keep his team in the playoff hunt and if the Heat happen to end up in that same position as Toronto did, we may see a resemblance of that pattern.
- Out of 46 games last year, there were only 2 games where Lowry played in under 30 minutes.
While the ultimate payoff was winning an NBA title two seasons ago, Lowry hasn’t recorded a season of 70+ games since 2018 and has logged over 30,400 minutes in his career total. The 15-year veteran enters the Heat organization with plenty of mileage and coach Erik Spoelstra’s staff will likely need to address how his playing time should be managed going forward.