Recently, as everyone is painfully aware, the Miami Heat and the NBA, as a whole, have had an outbreak of Covid. Combine that with normal wear and tear-type injuries and teams are scrambling to find players to prevent postponing games.
This, of course, has resulted in a variety of old and young players getting chances to showcase themselves. In Miami, one of these 10-day hardship contracts happened to go to Kyle Guy.
Guy is 24 years old and had a good college career at Virginia, which included a National Championship. Over the last few years since, he’s played sparingly for Sacramento and Cleveland, never really being able to latch on and cement a spot for himself in the league.
That could change now though, as he is showing his abilities and potential for the Miami Heat as a shooter and playmaker. In his four games for Miami thus far, he’s shooting a spectacular 50 percent from deep and nearly 55 percent from the field.
Reasonably, these numbers will start to come down, a bit, as he puts in more minutes but they still hold significance.
Miami Heat: Kyle Guy Might Be The Steal Of 10-Day Hardship Deals
He’s played far too few games for the advanced stats to accurately portray his overall effectiveness, but if you look at the film, it’s clear there is talent and potential there.
His real value is clearly his shooting, but there’s a little more to go with that. He’s benefiting from playing the Duncan Robinson role, catching and shooting from off-ball action.
That being said, it doesn’t mean just anyone can step in and know where to be at which times, let alone actually making the shots. Guy has shown that he has a good basketball IQ.
In one of his buckets against Houston, he faked a screen for Tyler Herro and flared out to the top of the key where Tyler could find him open. He makes the shot by utilizing a well-timed screen from Chris Silva.
In the same game, while waiting on the perimeter, he did a good job of shifting to create just enough space for Kyle Lowry to find him on the kick out. He then drove and made the right feed to Omer Yurtseven for the easy layup.
It didn’t stop there though for the former Cavalier. Kyle Guy was determined to keep proving that he wasn’t or isn’t just a guy.
Miami Heat: Hopefully, Kyle Guy Sticks On, As He Can Sure Stick The Long-Ball
Against the Kings, he showed his passing ability. He showed just how sharp that ability can be in a sequence where he penetrated the left elbow, looking to Lowry who was moving from the right-wing to top of the key.
The look itself along with Lowry’s movement, at the time, created enough space for Guy to zip a pass to an open Nik Stauskas on the right-wing. It’s only been three games, but these are moves that require skill and finesse.
For what it’s worth and apparently, the Miami Heat would do themselves a favor by finding a way to keep Guy on their roster. This season, more than any, is going to take depth for any team to be successful.
Having depth that can shoot and make plays within the offense is beyond important. The Heat run a good system and have a good organization, so it makes sense he was able to find himself in this situation.
Hopefully, he’ll stick around beyond his 10-day contract. If Miami can’t find a way to keep him, he’ll get picked up elsewhere and quickly after this showing.
For a player with only 37 NBA games, he sure has shown off, both, his playing and learning potential. Whatever you make of it all, it’s certainly enough to be a contributing player at the NBA level.