BREAKING: Miami Heat Sign Dru Smith (AGAIN)… Should Fans Be MAD?

BREAKING: Miami Heat Sign Dru Smith (AGAIN)… Should Fans Be MAD?

And that’s why y’all got to sub to the channel, man. Because the Miami Heat have officially signed Drew Smith to a three-year deal. Something that I told y’all was going to happen just earlier today where in my video I said this, need a big man. So, what do I I think they end up doing now that they have a little bit of money and a roster spot that they need to fill. Well, I do think that Heats ultimately end up signing Drew Smith. Yeah, that’s right. Drew Smith, not Kai Jones. I also said in that video that I had no idea why the Dolphins were favored to beat the Lions and the Dolphins did actually end up winning. So, shout out to Quinn Eers. Shout out to Olly Gordon. I really think the Fins have something there with him. But back to the Miami Heat. There was all this talk and hype surrounding Kai Jones rightfully so. I think he would have been an exciting player here. I think he would be a perfect fit. You know, we discussed his pending offer from an Italian team. So, a lot of Heat fans thought that’s why the Heat were so urgent to get under the tax is so they could get Kai Jones, a guy they just worked out earlier in the week. But I did end up saying that the Heat would ultimately sign Drew Smith. And less than 7 hours later, that’s exactly what happened. And none of us really should be surprised because we know that the entire Heat Front Office and Eric Spolster, they are obsessed with Drew Smith. As my guy David Ramil from the Locked on Heat podcast put on Twitter, he said, “Find yourself someone who loves you as much as the Heat Front Office loves Drew Smith.” Which really should be the goal in life. Not money, not fame, but find someone who loves you. like the Heat Love Drew Smith because now Drew Smith is back on on what like his 19th stint with the franchise, which is one more than Michael Beasley’s stint and still about 17 away from the amount of times Bonte Weber was here. But seriously, I I did look into Drew Smith’s past with Miami cuz I feel like they cut and and waved him and resigned him so many times. It started back in 2021 where he was on the summer league team. They ended up signing him to an offer and then they waved him prior to the start of the season. They then signed him to multiple two-way contracts in 2022 and waved him both times. Then he signed with the Brooklyn Nets. And as a Heat fan, I remember thinking, “Thank God we finally got rid of Drew Smith.” But then it was just a year later where the Heat signed him to a two-way contract in 2023 and then ended up converting his contract to a standard deal. And then that’s when he unfortunately tore his ACL in Cleveland if you remember because of that janky Cleveland court where there was like a foot drop off between the courts and the bench. It’s a dumb court in Cleveland. It ended up getting Drew Smith hurt. But then the next year, of course, he came back which was last season. The Heat signed him to a two-way contract. He was playing pretty well and then he unfortunately tore his Achilles and then the Heat ended up waving him then. But now he’s back on a on a three-year partially guaranteed contract. And I’m happy. You know, like most Heat fans, I didn’t love the Drew Smith experience at first for multiple years. He had the goofy looking hair. Didn’t really do anything in particular that kind of stood out at you. I thought he was basically a a net nothing out there, which I guess is fine. You know, from a backup point guard spot, if you get a guy who just doesn’t mess things up, it’s okay, I guess. but it it just wasn’t a great experience. He wasn’t really all that good a shooter and I just didn’t really see what the hell the heat valued in him so much. But as of last year and although he only played 14 games, that was enough for me to publicly denounce my Drew Smith haterism and be a fully converted Drew Smith believer because yeah, again, it was only 14 games, but he really made an impact in those games and I kind of fell in love with him. He was very clearly a heat culture guy because every time he checked into the game, like he immediately made a play that positively impacted the game. Whether it was getting a steal on Devin Booker, hitting a couple of threes in the corner, he was always making winning plays out there. And for the first time, I finally saw why the Miami Heat valued him so much. So, I get why the Heat like him, but I don’t necessarily understand why they brought him back right now. I don’t think it makes a lot of sense from multiple aspects. I mean, you just resigned DaVon Mitchell to a two-way or two-year contract, and I’m not even sure if Da’Von’s going to start as of right now. Actually think he might. Most Heat fans think that Norman Powell is going to start. I’m not so sure about that. But if Norman does eventually start, it’ll be next to Tyler Herro. You’ll probably have DaVon come off the bench in that regard unless the Heat start like Powell at the two and put Wiggins at the four, Bam at the five, have We come off the bench since they don’t have a backup center still. But for right now, I’m kind of assuming they’ll have the same starting lineup as last year. But let’s just say they end up starting Norman Powell, put DaVon on the bench, and now what? You’re going to play DaVon and Drew Smith off the bench somehow. I don’t really get how that would work just because they’re very similar type of players, which would be kind of scary for other teams on the defensive end just having those two kinds of dogs on the perimeter really lock you down. I think it would be fun to watch, but obviously offensively it would be a bit of a mess and depending who else was out there, the Heat might not have a ton of size. So, even outside of the fit standpoint, you have a lot of injury concerns. You’re talking back-to-back seasons that he had season ending injuries. And it’s not like Drew Smith is a guy that’s super young anyways. People may think he’s, you know, a sophomore or junior because he doesn’t have that much experience in the NBA, but he came into the league relatively older anyways. You know, he’s already 27 years old. So, you know, you’re not talking about a guy that might have had a few injuries early in his career and spends the rest of his career healthy. Like, no, he’s he’s 27. And as you get older, you typically don’t recover from injuries as quickly. I don’t want to act like 27 is super old or anything like that, but my point is he’s he’s not a rookie, you know, and outside of all that stuff, you got to worry how real last year was considering the small sample size because, yeah, he’ll always be a good defender if he’s still able to move, you know, as well laterally and things like that. But he did shoot 52% from three last year on like two attempts at night. It was something ridiculous like that. It was over 50%. Obviously, he’s not going to continue to shoot over 50% over a sustained season, but can he shoot 40%. Can he shoot high 30%. I don’t know because that would be a bit of an outlier compared to what he did his his first couple of seasons in the NBA. Obviously, there’s not a lot of sample size there either, but you still don’t have a large uh film tape of him being a very productive oncourt NBA player. So, there’s a lot of questions there. And then plus look at your guard depth. I mean, you didn’t really need him in terms of uh position, right? Because if you count the guards, you got Hero, you got Casperis, you got Pella, you got DaVon, you got Norman Powell, and Terry Rosir still on the roster somehow. That’s six guards. I still think you need a true point guard, a true facilitator. Drew Smith is certainly not that. Although, I think he’s capable. Like we said earlier, he’s basically able to go out there and not mess anything up, which is a good sign for a backup point guard, but he’s not a true facilitator. So, the Heat still don’t have one of those. Uh, and I I guess they’re they’re maybe looking for Casperis to one day be their potential playmaker. But now you got to wonder how much of Casper’s minutes is going to be taken up by Drew Smith. I don’t know. It’s just something to think about. And it doesn’t make a lot of sense to me to play Drew Smith over Casperis because it’s not like Cass was a a bad defender anyways. I mean, coming, you know, into the draft, people didn’t think he could be a great defender, but in summer league, he really impressed me. He’s also a guy that was an absolute dog on the defensive end, diving for loose balls, picking people’s pockets. I think he can be a very capable defender in the NBA. And then, of course, you also have the upside of his playmaking and scoring and ability to get to the rim. So, I certainly don’t hope that Drew Smith is a progress stopper for Casper Yakonis. I understand, I guess, in terms of fit, the Heat did need some more point of attack/perimeter defense to supplement the loss of Hayward Highmith, but preferably they could have got some of that from someone uh who who plays the wing position, you know, a bigger player, a player who could guard the I was going to say Jason Tatums, but he’s he’s out next season. But we know Haywood Highmith was the Tatum Stopper. There’s not going to be Drew Smith or Drew Smith is not going to guard Jaylen Brown like Hayward Highmith could have. Maybe you have Bam Debio guard a lot of those wings now, especially if he’s playing next to Khalil Wear. So Khil Wear can guard the big men. You can have Bam Deio on the perimeter a little bit more, which I do like the idea of that. And then you could have some more guard defense like Drew Smith, DaVon Mitchell to kind of help supplements everything like that. especially if the Heat are going to pay Tyler Herro, they’re going to need to play him in the back court next to someone that can play defense. So, I do kind of get the whole Drew Smith uh perspective there. But still, not having a backup center is insane to me because your only big man off the bench right now is Nicole Yoic, who’s not even a big man. And if the Heat try to play him like one, then that’s an absolute disservice to his career because we’ve seen time and time again him thrive with the ball in his hands. So, let him be a guard off the bench, which again, I guess you can even put him as another guard now, too. So, he needs size badly. I mean, Yoic just dropped like 22 points in in his game versus Germany, I think it was. He had the ball in his hands. He was hitting threes. It should be that way. He shouldn’t have to play back up big out of necessity because the Heat didn’t sign anyone else. So, I do wish that maybe the Heat could have got Kai Jones or somebody like that. But I’m not going to be mad at the Drew Smith signing because I do like Drew and at the end of the day, he’s an impactful Heat culture type player and I’ve been saying for years now that the Heat need more Heat culture type guys so they can get back to that identity of toughness. Now, it’s not even a bad contract. It’s officially a $7.9 million deal over the course of three seasons, which comes to about uh $2.6 million per year. And only that first season is fully guaranteed, which is next year. So if going into the 2026 off season, there’s a whale who becomes available and the Heat need the extra money, they and if they need to shed $3 million from Drew Smith salary, they can wave him and it basically is not a long-term hindrance on your your salary cap books. So that $2.6 6 million that Drew Smith is going to be getting this season. It’s basically a minimum contract, which as we discussed in today’s earlier video, that’s why the Heat can’t get Kai Jones 2, because after the Haywood Highmith trade, they were $4 million under the luxury tax, which was the goal. And now you’re adding in $2.6 million of Drew Smith’s contract, which means that they’re now only $1.4 million under the luxury tax. So, if you wanted to sign Kai Jones to a minimum, it would also be a little more than $2 million, which of course means the Heat would be right back over the luxury tax, which is what they’re trying to avoid this season. So, I don’t think the Heat would get Kai Jones right now. They’ll probably keep that last roster spot open, take it into the season, and then they can sign a guy after January where his pro-rated contract is now less than 2 million, and he can sign a guy without going over the luxury text. Will Kai Jones be available by then? Who knows? He’ll probably sign that deal in Italy now. We’ll see what happens. I guess the Heat could make another move to to get more cap space. They could still wave and stretch Fonteio. Who knows? You still got a month and a half left before training camp. Uh, and I actually did read that there’s some optimism that Drew Smith might actually be ready by then, which is is kind of stunning to me. As Barry Jackson wrote in his article, uh, there’s optimism that Smith, who sustained the non-cont injury in late December, just last year, will be able to play either by the start of the regular season on October 22nd in Orlando or very soon after. So, if he can get back to playing in games less than a year later, then that’s just a credit to his hard work, which it shouldn’t surprise me that he’s a hardworking guy because the Mommy Heat love him. So, I do hope he can play again soon. And overall, I’m not going to get too crazy about it cuz I think he’s a good guy and a and a good player when healthy. That’s all I got to say for this video, though. I want to remind y’all once again to fill out my Family Feud questionnaire down in the comments below cuz I’m going to have some of your favorite Heat content creators battle it out. I think I have about 55 responses so far, which is very good. And if you want to get in on that, make sure to click that link down below. I also want to shout out FanDuel once more, the sponsor of today’s video, and then let y’all know to comment your thoughts thoughts down below because I’m very curious to hear what y’all think. Like the video and subscribe. All that good stuff is greatly appreciated. And I’ll see y’all on the next video. Peace out, everyone. Do it on my own. I don’t need no dead. Yeah, I need a head space. You know this homegrown don’t a fan.

Discussing the Miami Heat signing Dru Smith after trading Haywood Highsmith to the Brooklyn Nets. Could Kai Jones still be an option? NBA and Miami Heat News featuring Bam Adebayo, Tyler Herro, Andrew Wiggins, Kel’el Ware, Kasparas Jakucionis, Terry Rozier, Nikola Jovic, Jaime Jaquez Jr., Duncan Robinson, Kevin Love, Haywood Highsmith, Pelle Larsson, Keshad Johnson, Erik Spoelstra and more. Subscribe for more Miami Heat, Miami Dolphins, NBA and NFL news.

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