Pat Riley Made A SNEAKY GOOD Move No One Is Talking About!

Pat Riley Made A SNEAKY GOOD Move No One Is Talking About!

[Music] Heat President Pat Riley made a very sneaky move this off season this point that I think is not being talked about enough as someone who is going to impact the Miami Heat roster in a very positive way. You might be asking who could that person be? Well, it’s actually the player Miami got back in return with the Duncan Robinson signing trade. I believe Simone Fonteio is going to be a very productive and impactful player for Miami, assuming they hold on to him heading into the season, which I don’t really forecast many other opportunities to where Miami would ultimately move on from him. It was reported they have no plans to wave and stretch him. And I don’t really think that would be smart either because I do think he would be really good in this um Heat system in this Heat roster. And to be honest, like when you think of the actual move itself rather than the player, Miami was going to wave Duncan Robinson. Remember, he had one year, $19.8 million left on his contract. If he opted in that He were just going to wave him and save $10 million. They communicated that to Duncan and said, “Hey, if you opted out, use your ETO, we can then work with you on a signing trade to get you to a specific destination.” That signing trade also allowed Miami to save a little bit of money. Very minuscule, about just under 2 million, but allowed them to save money. And if you’re the Heat, would you have rather let him go and have him on the books for 9.8 8 million for nothing. Or would you rather have the Heat ultimately take in Fonteo at 8.4? So, it’s that 1.4 million of savings, but then add another expiring contract. I think it would much more rather have the 8.4 million expiring in Fonteo than the 9.8 dead cap of Duncan Robinson. But I also think Fonteo will be very good for this Heat team. And throughout this show, I’m going to explain a couple reasons why his advanced numbers and what I foresee Fonteo’s role being for this heat team this upcoming year. But before we get into all of that, I want to welcome the Italian to the 305. I mean, as an Italian myself, I am very happy to have the Italian. And I was watching some film and every time you hit a three, the Pistons bench would go like this for the Italian. I can’t wait to do it for this upcoming year. But like the video to welcome Simone to the 305. All right. Now, we’re going to break down him as a player, what he’s done in his career, and how I think he’s going to impact Miami. Well, I first want to start by saying this. He has been playing professional basketball for a very long time. He only joined the NBA in the 2022 off season, signing a two-year deal with the Utah Jazz. He was then traded from Utah to Detroit during the 2023 24 season, which was his best season, by the way. And then obviously spent this past year in Detroit before being in part of the signing trade this year from the Pistons to Miami. Career numbers, you see, he’s a 36.3% three-point shooter. It was interesting to see him put together a really solid 23 24 campaign and then not really get a lot of PT this past season for Detroit. Now, there could be some reasons why he signed a 2-year $16 million deal. And then you saw players like Ron Holland, Osar Thompson, Tobias Harris joined that Pistons roster, three players that weren’t on the team in 2324 when he played 16 games for Detroit and played very, very well after he was traded there. Like, I think Vonteo might have got the wrong end of the stick in terms of his spot in that Detroit Pistons rotation. But when you look at a brief scouting report, here are the three things that stand out to me in terms of positives and the negatives. With the positives, he is a really good movement shooter who has a lightning quick release. I mean, you watch some of his film and the ball feels like it barely touches his hand, but it’s out of his hands very quickly. It’s a high arcing release point to where it’s hard to contest and hard to get a piece of. I think when you watch him shoot the pill, that is something that will stand out to Heat fans when they really watch him for the first time in a Heat uniform. I think he’s going to be able to light it up from beyond the arc at times. He has really good positional size. He can really play the two, he can play the three. He’s 6’7. We’ll look at his size profile and wingspan here in a second. And I’m not going to call him an elite defender by any stretch of the imagination, but he competes in a very hard way. And if you play for the Heat, you need to compete on that end of the floor. And I think Fonteio does that. Now, a couple of the downsides on Simone, he’s limited in terms of his on ball creation. I don’t think he’s the greatest athlete vertically or speedwise. And when you look at his finishing around the rim, it’s not that good either. He’s not going to put the ball on the deck and attack the cup. He’s not going to finish that well in a crowd. He shot 8% be uh under league average in the restricted area. So, not a good metric there. He is doing most of his damage in transition, easy breakaway dunks, and on catch and shoot from beyond the ark. But I mentioned his positional size. He is clocked in at 67, 205 to 210 lbs. And the wingspan was hard to find, but the wingspan that I found was 6’11. And to me, that checks out because when you watch him play and you watch his release point, that ball is really high up here. And when you have a super high release point for a player of that size, it usually does mean you have a long wingspan because quick math here and just common sense. Long wingspan, long arms, high release point, similar to Kevin Durant. Not like the way he shoots, but just the long wingspan, the lengthy body. So Fonteo does have very good positional size in the way he moves around offensively and defensively. It just gives him versatility in a Heat lineup. We’re going to continue to break down Fonteio, but pin comment. I want to hear it. One word on Simone Fonteio. You can watch this video and then go comment. You can go comment right now. All I know is that I want to hear what you have to say about Simone. My one word for Fonteio is gritty. I mean, he spent like five to seven years playing in the international leagues, whether it’s in Italy or other leagues. And then he joins the NBA. He’s 29 years of age, going to be 30 soon. And I just think that his pathway to the association, the way he plays on both ends, just embodies a gritty player. And I could see him having a role on this Miami Heat roster due to that grittiness, due to his able ability to be a connecting piece in any rotation and his shooting ability. Like when you think of an Eric Spolster type guy, you think of someone who competes, who tries to the absolute maximum and can shoot the rock. That is Simone Fonteio. And I know Heat fans are going to want to see a lot of young guys play like Hakez, Yovic, Larson, Kashad Johnson. But if Eric Spolster wants to win basketball games, don’t be surprised and upset when this man Fonteio is on the floor during the regular season at a pretty high rate. So, let’s look at some advanced numbers on Fontekio. We’re going to start with threepoint attempt rate, threepar. 60.9% of his shot attempts last season came from beyond the arc. That is in the 84th percentile. So, what does that tell you for him as a player? He is going to get up a lot of three-point shots. And you will not see him take 15t mid-range shots. No, he is either going to finish on a back door cut or on a baseline cut or he’s going to shoot the ball from beyond the arc, which is fine by me because that will fit the top players on this roster as a connecting piece. It will fit Hero will fit them. It will fit Kalware. Another advanced metric here, Fonteo shooting quality, which is a scale of one to 100 in terms of a player shooting ability using a various amount of advanced metrics. He was graded out at a 69.8 83rd percentile. And the reason why I like using these type of numbers is because it puts him in relation to his peers. So out of all of the players in the association, he ranked in the top 17% of shooting quality and top 16% in terms of three-point rate. This is a player that is going to shoot the ball a lot from beyond the ark and he could fill the void of Duncan Robinson. Not to the way Duncan did it, but in terms of coming off the bench and knocking down some three-point shots, yeah, Fontekio could do that. I could see him playing a little bit of the Alec Burks role from a year ago as well, just maybe not as an efficient rate, but a little bit of a better defender. Here is how Fontekia was used on the offensive side of the floor in terms of his usage percentage. Now, this doesn’t make up the whole pie. There was very minuscule other ways he was used but the primary usage rate for him was his spot up opportunities 35.5%. Which doesn’t makes a lot of like it doesn’t shock us if you will right a lot of catch and shoot opportunities and then spot up also includes catch and shoot pump fake dribble drive to the rim or somewhere else. He was used off ball a lot. He also got a lot of work in transition. 25.9% of his use came in that way. He’s got long strides. He gets out in transition and runs the floor well. But here is where I think it’s interesting for Fonteo. 9.6% handoff rate, 5.8% off of screen, and 4.7% off cuts. The handoffs is the one I want to highlight here because what is something Duncan Robinson did at an extremely high rate for Miami. Oh, in the DHO with Bam at a bio. Those two had such a very strong chemistry in the dribble handoff where it would either be a fake handoff, bam drive, hand off to Duncan and into a three-point shot, hand off to Duncan into a pick and roll with Bam and Duncan. Like that is something that Robinson did not get a lot of credit for with the Heat is how efficient he was in that DHO with Bam. Maybe Fonteio can get used in that way. not a high rate usage rate, but he’s been doing it in the past with the Detroit Pistons and Utah Jazz. And another number that I want to go at was his cut percentage. Very low, but when watching his film and watching the way he was able to finish around the rim and when you look at some of his restricted area finishes, a lot of those opportunities were non-contested because he was really good at realizing when his defender was overplaying him and then using that to his advantage. I saw many times on his film the defender would almost be like walling him off because they know he wants to come off a curl. They know he wants to come off and set a screen into a flare for a three-point shot. And when the defender would kind of pick up on that and almost try to go over the screen off the ball, Fontekia would take that one step and then back cut towards the rim. And the big man at the top of the key would then find Fonteo on a back cut for an easy layup or dunk. can we know Adabio is very good at being a creator and a hub at the top of the key and if they were going to try to have Fontekio come in and he goes for a back cut Van will be able to hit him and we even saw KL wear improve on that a little bit although he does have a long way to go on that area the point is I think Fonteo is going to be very good in an offball sense cutting towards the rim for the Miami Heat. Make sure you are subscribed to the channel for many reasons here. We have daily heat videos. We go live for Heat basketball during the season. We do player breakdowns off season, in season, like this one you’re watching today. We’ve also got the latest Heat rumors and if they’re going to make a move and a trade, signing, and when they make moves, we have you covered as well. So, join us here at the Heat Report right now. Another reason why I’m very bullish on Fontio, I mentioned it a couple times throughout today’s show, his versatility, and I think he works with any lineup. I’m trying to envision a lineup to where I think Fonteio doesn’t fit and I’m having a hard time doing it. Like he can play with Bam and Wear, he can play with Yoic, he can play with Hero, Norman Powell, Highmith, Hakez, like there isn’t a player he can’t play with. And that is why I think Yoic is always a good player as well because who is a guy that Yoic can’t play with? If you’re got good size with f which Fontio has just like Yovic, you can pass in the half court, you can knock down a shot, you can defend and you can rebound to a degree. Yeah, you are going to fit with anybody. And that is what Eric Spolster really likes. He sees that with Yoic. He sees that with Highmith, with Bam. And I think he’s going to see that with Fonteio, which is why I believe he will see the floor a lot more than I think some people realize. Let’s look at some advanced defensive stats for Fontio as well. Here’s an interesting one. Radv kind of the way that he’s able to force turnovers as well as get rebounds and then the defensive rebound as well. Well, you see the agreement there with 80th percentile for defensive rebound percentage and then 72nd percentile for the radv. very stunned by those two numbers, but you see the advanced numbers for those two and I’m pretty impressed with that for him. I think he’s going to be able to come in and be a good connecting piece defensively. Is he going to be an elite defender? No. But he’s versatile as well. And that’s another part that I really like of him. When you look at his defensive numbers, he has an elite defensive versatility score. Maybe elite’s a strong word, but 62.3, 67th percentile, that is very playable, very solid in my opinion. And when you look at what he did defensively, he can guard two through four in a very high rate. He really can. Like you look at what he can do and he could guard twos. He did that the second highest rate. He guard threes. That’s who he guarded the most. And he could even guard a little bit of the fours in the NBA as well. He’ll be able to be someone who really partakes in this scheme and system that prioritizes and prides itself on being able to switch on almost every screen. And here is my final word on Simone Fontekio. With a larger role, I think he could be a very productive and winning player for Miami. And what do I mean larger role? I’m not asking him to play a significant amount of minutes. I’m not I’m not asking him to be in the starting lineup. I’m not asking him to be in the closing lineup, but he just didn’t see the floor that much for Detroit in big close games. He saw it in blowouts. And either way, like I just think Fonteio is going to be able to be a solid player. And here’s another reason why. When you look at his stats from last season, he only played about 13 16 minutes a game, somewhere in that range. When you look at his per 36 stats, which is usually what a top end starter plays, you see Hero and Bam in big games play damn near 40 minutes. But Bonko averaged 13 a night with six boards. Like, is he going to do that in Miami? No. But if he plays 20 to 25 minutes instead of the 13 to 16 minutes, I think you’ll see him average eight to 10 points a game, four boards as well, be able to knock down some threes and clutch moments. I just believe that he is a smart high IQ player that Miami will value very very well and he will be on the floor quite a bit for the Heat which is why I think getting him back in return for the Duncan Robbins signing trade was a very good sneaky move by Pat Riley in this heat front office. That will do it for today’s show. Make sure you do follow me over on Twitter. Neck_rolloff is my handle. If you want more Miami Heat content, that is the spot for you. Subscribe, follow me on Twitter, and you’ll never miss a thing around the Miami Heat. [Music]

The Miami Heat acquired Simone Fontecchio during NBA Free Agency in the Duncan Robinson sign-and-trade. Heat Report host Nic Rohloff believes Fontecchio will be able to really impact the Miami Heat roster! Fontecchio joined the NBA by signing with the Utah Jazz in 2022, and was traded to the Detroit Pistons during the 2023-24 NBA Season. Fontecchio signed a new two-year deal, and will be an NBA Free Agent in 2026. This Heat YouTube video features Miami Heat rumors, Heat news, and a Simone Fontecchio player breakdown + scouting report!

Welcome Simone Fontecchio to the 305 by liking today’s video!

Simone Fontecchio career NBA stats (193 GP):
7.6 PPG, 2.8 RPG, 41.9 FG%, 36.3 3P%

Have you turned on your notifications? Check to make sure and turn your notifications to ‘ALL’ to never miss a Miami Heat Report video!

Got some friends that are Miami Heat fans? Share this video to them!

Rolly does more NBA content over on our main YouTube channel! Go check it out for more from Nic Rohloff: http://www.youtube.com/@chatsports?sub_confirmation=1

Simone Fontecchio usage rate:
Spotup: 35.5%
Transition: 25.9%
Handoff: 9.6%
Off Screen: 5.8%
Cut: 4.7%

Want more of Rolly’s analysis, reactions & thoughts on the Heat? Follow: https://twitter.com/nic_rohloff

Simone Fontecchio ranked in the top 20% of shooters in the NBA. Fontecchio’s 3PAr was 60.9% (84th percentile) and his shot quality was 69.8% (83rd percentile).

Share your thoughts on the Miami Heat below:
– One-word on Simone Fontecchio!

Want more from the Heat Report? WATCH more YouTube videos here! 📺 👀:
– ANOTHER Move Coming? NBA Agent Says Pat Riley Isn’t Done! Miami Heat Rumors: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=piVI9k5Dofk
– Pat Riley & The Miami Heat NEED To Make This Move!: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F0_qgXjScFQ
– Miami Heat REUNITING With Victor Oladipo? Miami Heat Rumors: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0kNifAEjQ0k

The NBA Offseason is underway! Subscribe to not miss a thing: https://www.youtube.com/@heatreport?sub_confirmation=1

Miami Heat fans – next up… Follow @chatsports on social media right now for more NFL news, NBA rumors and college football videos:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/chatsports
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chatsports
Twitter/X: https://www.twitter.com/chatsports

#MiamiHeat #HeatRumors #HeatNews #CSB