Tyler Herro is in the midst of an NBA All-Star campaign. After facing immense criticism and being tangled in a spider web of trade scenarios of social media for three straight years, he has responded with his best basketball ever.
Herro’s evolution did not come out of nowhere. After a hot start last season, an injury derailed Herro’s season. Despite flashes of brilliance, he was never able to stay on the court consistently or put together great games. Those flashes of brilliance were certainly tantalizing, though—most notably, Herro’s takeover game against the Celtics.
The dramatic changes Tyler Herro made to his offensive game might lead to his first All-Star appearance.
While Herro’s playoff outing was mostly pedestrian, something clicked in that game against the Celtics and we’re seeing it pay dividends now.
Let’s look at some charts. Here are Herro’s “bad” games against the Celtics vs his one great game via NBA.com:
Here was his breakthrough game: pic.twitter.com/STHDkf6KUp
— Brandon Di Perno (@Brandon_DiPerno) December 12, 2024
And this is his shot chart from this season per StatMuse:
And now this season: pic.twitter.com/5RG4tnis2d
— Brandon Di Perno (@Brandon_DiPerno) December 12, 2024
What do we notice? The absence of mid-range shots. Herro is playing a lot more like how he did in the game two win versus how he did in the other four games. In seasons past Herro would shoot about 44% of his looks in the midrange at a 38% clip as per Cleaning the Glass. Herro loved to shoot in the short-mid range and long-midrange in 2023-2024. This season he shoots less than 4% of his shots from the long mid-range increasing his three-point frequency by a staggering 10%.
Usually, a smaller guard hunting threes would probably be a cocktail for disaster. Not for Tyler Herro. Herro is posting his most efficient three point shooting season ever, and it doesn’t appear that he’ll be slowing down anytime soon.
Is there anything that hasn’t carried over from the Celtics playoff breakthrough? Yes. The playmaking. While Herro posts a respectable 5 assist per game average, he only has one double-digit assist game this season. Herro is not particularly turnover prone - so I’d personally like to see more, but it’s hard for me to demand more from a guy having his best season ever at only 24 years old.
Herro’s tendency to improve his game from season to season is a luxury we should not take for granted as Heat fans. If this trend continues, he’ll be an even better player by the time he reaches his prime. In a season that has been up and down, and now riddled with trade rumors seeing Herro break through makes this teame exciting to follow.