Miami Heat: Does Toronto Victor Oladipo Put Duncan Robinson On Notice?

The Miami Heat are looking to close their year on a high note.

With two matchups in the middle of this week against potential Eastern Conference Playoffs foes, the Charlotte Hornets and the Atlanta Hawks respectively, they’ll look to handle their business there before putting a bow on the season in a meeting with their in-state brethren on Sunday against the Magic.

Speaking of handling” their business” though, that’s what they were able to do Sunday and on a very grand occasion for them.

Well, as you love to be excited for your guys, this was Kyle Lowry Day in Toronto, his first showing since leaving the Raptors, where the Miami Heat would, not only, find a way to get an undermanned win on his day but also take care of a team that’s been a pest to them all year.

Though they didn’t have all of their regular guys going, they weren’t “undermanned” in the purest sense of it all. To be precise, Markieff Morris and Victor Oladipo both came to play.

Miami Heat: Does Toronto Victor Oladipo Put Duncan Robinson On Notice?

Keef Morris and Victor Oladipo were huge factors in the tough road win for Miami. What they gave on Sunday was absolutely necessary, with Morris getting the start and producing, while Dipo was a huge part of the effort to slam the door on the feisty Raptors bunch.

Today though, the focus must be on Oladipo’s showing.

Showing you all of the game that he still has in his bag, Dipo put on a show Sunday! He played defense.

He created for himself and his teammates. He finished strong, with intensity, and electricity after he created those opportunities.

He made shots. He made deep shots.

We mean—he made some deeep range shots. This one below, he shot that from the parking lot of the FTX Arena in Miami, sinking it on the farside basket of the Scotiabank Arena in Toronto.

Yea, that’s how deep that one was and all while a man was running out at him. That’s impressive.

Follow along with us here though. Here’s where the rabbit hole really starts to deepen.

Miami Heat: After Showings Like Toronto, You Have To See More Oladipo, Right?

It all leads to a few questions, with two being more important than others. How often can he give this to the Miami Heat, for starters?

Secondly, how can you make this a regular occurrence? Well, it would first take regular rotational minutes, something that had seemed to not be in his cards, as he had seemed to fall out over the last couple of games.

He wasn’t the only guy sliding though. Across his last five games, Duncan Robinson has only played in about 18 minutes per game, with two of those games coming in at right around 13 minutes.

His season average for minutes played this season is 26 minutes even.

Being down eight minutes from his average, ticking downward recently with the insertion of Max Strus into the starting lineup, and with Dipo’s showing on Sunday, you have to ask—is Robinson at a threat of losing out on, at least, some of those minutes to Oladipo at the moment?

It has to, at least, be considered. Hey, perhaps something like this was always in the cards though.

Here is what Five Reasons Sports had to say on the topic.

Perhaps, that is the case. Though it looked like he would be an odd man out, they are the guys that get paid a ton to make these decisions so, again, this could have always been the case with the Miami Heat and Oladipo’s status.

However, if it wasn’t, in all actuality, then showings like Sunday have to make you think. Is Duncan at risk of losing all or a good part of his minutes to a guy like Oladipo, who, apparently, can still flash like a superstar on the floor at times?

You to have to, most certainly, lean that way. Everybody in that Heat building probably is—or at the very least, thinking about it.