Breaking down Nassir Little's fit on Heat, 1 skill that will earn playing time

So, Pat Riley isn’t fully asleep! The Miami Heat signed Nassir Little this week to fill their 15th and final roster spot. After a quick look at his stats, I see a 6-foot-5 wing listed as a small forward who is an inconsistent shooter. That is textbook power forward for Erik Spoelstra.

He is a former first-round pick selected 25th overall in 2019. He’s only 24 years old and will turn 25 in February. He’s now entering his sixth season after spending four of them in Portland and one in Phoenix.

It hasn’t been the best start to his career. He has one season where he played more than 18 minutes per game. He has dealt with some injury issues too. Ability and health are two reasons he has played more than 50 games once.

With that said, expectations are low. I’m not sure he may even crack the rotation. There is a reason why he only appeared in 45 games for a Suns team that struggled with depth last season.

But this is the Heat taking a chance on him, where there is a track record for developing these kinds of players that didn’t pan out elsewhere.

So, let’s go through Little’s game!

Nassir Little provides some physical tools and interesting skills for the Heat to work with.

Starting with the basics, Little measured in at 6-foot-6 with a 7-foot-1 wingspan at the 2019 draft combine. That alone is a plus for this team. They need length and players with those physical tools. They need bigger wings.

Little is a role player on offense. There shouldn’t be any expectations of him creating his own shot at all. For his career, 63.8% of his 2s were assisted and 92.4% of his 3s were assisted. Last year that was even higher at 72.2% and 100%

The swing skill that will determine his playing time is the 3-point shot. Over the last two seasons, he has upped his 3-point rate to 52.1% and 56.5%. The only issue is that he shot 36.7% in 2023 before plummeting to 30.0% — for his career, he’s a 33% shooter on 6.8 3s per 100 possessions. Not good. Little will have to make open 3s to get on the court and keep his spot on the roster.

He has been respectable in a spot-up role. He scored 1.01 points per possession on 1.6 possessions (49.3% of his offense), where he has a 49.3% eFG. In 2023, he was at 1.08 on 2.9 (42.9% freq), and the year before, he was at 1.01 on 3.6 (38.2%). That’s not a liability on offense.

There are some positives. He has shot 36.4%, 37.2%, and 38.5% from the corners in the three seasons before this year. But that did drop to 32%. This should bounce back — for comparison, Haywood Highsmith shot 31.3% in 2023 and 43.8% last year.

On that note, a role similar to Highsmith is what Little will most likely play on offense. A utility guy spacing out to knock down 3s from the corner.

You can see in these clips that defenses don't care a single bit about him. It doesn’t matter how it’s set up or what actions are being run. The defense doesn't defend him. You can also see teams will sell out completely to stop someone else. He doesn’t threaten the defense at all as a shooter. That's a liability.

On the bright side, he's not reluctant to shoot. He’s active when it comes to lifting and getting a better look. There are ways to counter this, and some can be highly impactful for the Heat.

There’s things like this:

This is just a heady play to make spacing better. It’s little things (no pun intended) that can make Little a more effective off-ball player.

I LOVE this:

This is another instance of Little doing little things that can earn him minutes without the shooting. This is exactly what this team needs more of. It’s these screens (they haven’t had that since PJ Tucker).

Does this look familiar:

That’s three different ways Little has made himself more effective off the ball. In the play above, he’s first looking to maybe set a pin-in screen if needed. But when he gets the ball, he can flow into a handoff (or he can fake it too!).

Even when he’s not involved as a shooter or a screener, there’s plays like this. A smart cut to draw the defense in and open up Eric Gordon.

While he needs to work to help create spacing and will have to improve his 3-point shooting, there are other positives in his game.

Per PBP Stats, Little shot 70.6% at the rim last season! I can’t remember the last time I saw the number that high next to any Heat player when it comes to shooting at the rim. For his career, he shoots 66.1% with 31.2% of his shots at the basket.

That shows mostly in transition, which is something that the Heat need:

Little is a threat to run the floor and finish at the rim. He scored 1.42 points in transition with 23.2% of his offense there. He shot 70.4%!

In low volume, he has shown some ability to shoot the ball elsewhere. He's a career 40.5% shooter within 4-14 feet and 44.8% on long 2s.

He's also flashed the ability to beat closeouts.

Although I mentioned that he’s a role player with no expectation of creating his own shot, there is some ability to still get a good look. In the last three years, he’s 129 of 249 (51.8%) on 2s when holding the ball for more than 2 seconds. That includes shots beating the closeout, faking a handoff and attacking, or ones he creates for himself entirely. That’s almost 52% on just under two shots per game in the last three seasons.

One concern is his passing and the turnovers. He has a career 6.4 assist percentage but a 9.5 turnover percentage. In each season, his turnover percentage was higher. He made 8.6 passes per game this year. Eight point six!

He averaged just 1.0 potential assists. That’s not much better in previous seasons either, with his best season coming in 2022 at 22.2 passes made and 2.8 potential assists. It’s safe to say that he’s not going to have any impact as a passer. That, again, will limit his playing time.

That’s the offense. The best path for him to get any kind of minutes on the team is to be at least a 35% shooter from 3-point range. Without that, I don’t see any reason you’d play him outside of needing bodies because of injuries.

I’m curious about the defense too, seeing as he’s an athletic wing with elite length. Per NBA’s matchup data, for his career, he mostly splits the time on wings and guards.

This year, he has spent time on players like Kyle Kuzma, Cam Whitmore, Cam Johnson, Julius Randle, Michael Porter Jr, LeBron James, Mikal Bridges and Devin Vassell. In prior seasons, he matched up with Scottie Barnes, Andrew Wiggins, Pascal Siakam, Trey Murphy and Kawhi Leonard. He’s a big-wing defender.

He’s had some solid defensive possession when defending 1v1 against bigger players and holding his own. He has switched to wings or guards and kept up with them on drives. That’s another body that you can bring in to guard up because someone will have to.

Overall, Little might end up being a non-factor and this breakdown will have been pointless. There’s a very likely chance that he may not see much playing time. Or this could end up swinging the other way where he bounces back as a shooter and earns minutes with his hustle.

Everything will most likely depend on his shooting. It was an issue on a Suns team that had Kevin Durant, Devin Booker, Bradley Beal and Grayson Allen. Even with so many shooters, his minutes hurt them. The Heat aren't operating with that same baseline of spacing.

But there is upside. There is the potential that if he becomes a respectable shooter (defenses will likely still camp in the paint, though) then they can use another big wing that can guard up and be an efficient play finisher.

As of now, I like this move. It doesn’t hurt them. In this system with Spoelstra, it could pay off.