Miami Heat Roster Construction Will Make Jaime Jaquez Jr. Bounce Back In Year 3 Tough From The Jump

Miami Heat Roster Construction Will Make Jaime Jaquez Jr. Bounce Back In Year 3 Tough From The Jump

Welcome on in guys. Tobin here with you and thanks for checking out the channel. Hope you’re doing well there. If you guys could subscribe that’d be great and appreciate you stopping by the channel as we march towards Miami Heat season. By the way, you guys could also watch the Tobin Leroy show now on the FM dial. I guess that would be listening, not watching. But you can watch it on QAM’s YouTube channel, 1043 WQAM, and on uh Twitch Miami 1043 WQM. So check us on out there. Four hours a day, every single weekday. And uh would appreciate that from you guys. You guys are beautiful and I love you. So I want to get a little bit into Haime Hakees Jr. He had a camp this week, I believe, in Hyia and uh spoke to some of the media out there with Anthony Chang, Ira Winderman. So, good to see Haime out in the community doing some stuff with the people. And you know, it’s it’s such an interesting thing, man, because this guy was riding real high after his rookie season, first team all rookie, and then you have last year, and now it almost feels like he’s one of the forgotten men, right? Like obviously we’re going into this year and Terry Roier is going to be completely the forgotten man on the team, right? Like you know they’re signing guards up the wazoo. They’re going to they drafted a guard. It’s almost like why even discuss Terry Roier? But Haime still remains a fascinating case because we’re talking about going into year three. This is which is always really a big year because usually after year three you want to know are you going to extend the guy after this year? Are you going to let him go to restricted free agency after his fourth year? It’s a pretty critical year for an NBA player and obviously he is uh as a four-year starter in college or four-year player in college. He is a little bit older. You know, you think of him as more of a polished product. You bring him here and you kind of thought, “Oh, we’re adding this polished piece that’s going to play right now and he’s going to make this impact right away,” which he did, by the way. And then it kind of just goes off the rails in the second half of that season. He shows some life there in the one of the rare ones to show life in that playoff series against the Boston Celtics. Tyler had the amazing game and now it feels like this year it’s like where does he even fit in the plans this year? It is it’s an interesting thing. Um I mean I we a couple videos back I did my worst takes or worst bold predictions which I still got to make my bold predictions for this year. Maybe this is the week to do my bold predictions. I think I did I think it’s been about a year. So, this may be the week I do that. But one of them I picked him to win six man of the year. I was that excited for Haime Hawkins. And now it’s like what if you had to number the players on the team, the 14 players? What is Haime? Ninth. Ninth. Is that where he’s at right now? Like if we’re going to go the starters, he’s not going to be on there. So, let’s go. But let’s just say for argument sake, you know, Norman, Tyler, Bam, Wiggins, Kell. You got your three guys off the bench who you probably like as your most is DaVon, then Nico, then Pella, who’s probably like the number one stop gap for for Haime, and then is he above Fonte? I’d say I’d put him above Fonteio, right? Like you just think Heat investment, you feel like you got to put him above Fonteio. You feel like that’s the, you know, so I’ll put put him ninth. Fonteio 10th. Um 11th, Yakonis, 12th, Drew Smith. 13th, Terry Roier. Am I missing somebody? I’m missing somebody, right? Oh, Keshot Johnson. Uh where do I put Keyshot? I would put a Keshot above Fonteo, I think. So, Haime’s somewhere between Kha. He’s like in the Keshad Fonteio realm. Like, he’s not going to be outcast. Those three like I don’t think we’re going to see Terry at all. Drew Smith is like a feel like a break glass. He’s healing. He’s on the roster. Feels like that. Yakonis, I that’s going to be a halfway through the season at most. So those three guards I I’m putting at the back then, you know, I don’t know what the fontio role is. I don’t know what they envision for him, but I imagine it’s after the top three role guys. And so yeah, it’s kind of somewhere between like if they’re going to play nine, Keshaw Johnson or Haime Hake Jr. Himeme is a first round pick. Keshaw’s an undrafted guy. I feel like the nod is gonna go to Haime, but I also feel like part of the reason they were comfortable on dumping Haywood Highmith was because they had Keshaw Johnson and they’ve envision him as their rugged defender on the wing, athletic as all hell, shooting is going to improve dog vocal guy. Like, I think that’s what they’re going to look at him as. And Haime is like beautiful footwork. uh masterful basketball uh handles with the you know basketball ma magical basketball skill with the ball in his hands um especially in the paint but I don’t necessarily know where his role is on this team and and people have said this like you’re a little confused by the roster construction right now. I talked about this on the radio show a little bit today in react. It’s like it almost feels like the Heat are in position that if they do make a trade at some point this season, they’re ready for somebody to just slide right in there and and take a spot and and whether that be if they put DaVon in a package, they have Drew Smith to step in. If Tyler were to get traded for whatever reason, they just were at a contract impass then they got the Norman Davon backcourt with Haime taking over sixman, you know. Um if they moved Wiggins for whatever reason, Haime could slide there in into the three spotter. Nico could and then rolls move up like it it almost feels like the Heat are still a move away and then of course you got to know what’s coming back. But it feels like the Heat are still like this like they they’ve positioned themselves almost like once a move happens everyone’s going to kind of slide right into place and then there’s no depth with the bigs which obviously is a wee bit concerning unless they really really believe in Vlad Golden. Um, but yeah, you know, I mean, this is a guy in Himemehawk as I picked to win six man of the year last year and I’m a little bit like where’s his minutes coming from? You know, I mean, regular season guys will get hurt. So, sometimes we overthink this stuff and it’ll it’s an an inevitability that he will get out there. But, I’m just saying off the bat and then like how serious is, you know, how much of a competition in camp are we talking about either, right? Like Spo talks about the camp and having a full camp and being together. How many jobs are actually on the line, you know, with it basically being solidified that it’s going to be Bam, hero, Powell, Wiggins, those are going to be starting four. We could definitely see a scenario where Nico gets the starting job and he’s four, Bam’s five. Um, but there’s there’s still a scenario I think Nico can be the starting one of the starting bigs on this team. I don’t want to do numbers. Um, and I guess there’s an outside chance that DaVon wins outright at camp and and Norm’s coming off the bench. But I got I got a hard time believing that because I could I could see Nor Pal sees like a not rock the boat guy, but I could I could see that getting um uncomfortable. I could see it. I don’t know. I don’t know. Nor maybe Norman Pal’s like the ultimate soldier, but when he talks about one or two option on a on a winning team and thought he should have been an all-star, I don’t think that guy is going to dig going back to the bench role. I I just, you know, just like Tyler didn’t, right? Tyler was very open and honest about that. Um, but I am I am very uh I am very interested to see where this goes. Haime did speak to reporters. Um, he said on what he’s worked on, he said, quote, “Just going back and watching some film.” Um, I think that’s a big one, just remembering what put me on the floor and what got me in this position, leaning into my strengths as well as working on things that I need to work on like shooting and defense and just bringing it all together as a whole. I think one of the biggest things for me this off season, um, I’ve been doing a lot of great work with my trainer and he’s really helped me through the process. It has been great. And we know that he’s worked a little bit with, uh, Chris Prickley the last couple of years. That was Jimmy Butler’s trainer. Of course, that’s what he said coming in is that Jimmy’s his favorite player. He probably won’t say that out loud in the arena right now. Um, he says, “I’ve been doing a lot of great work. I’ve been in Los Angeles training every day. It’s been great. It’s been great to get away. Uh it was good to be home for quite a significant period of time, but I feel great. My head’s in the right place. Super excited to get the season going and win some games, which I’m hopeful for, man. He um you know, one of the things I did wonder cuz and and you know, these are just things you wonder because you don’t know. I did wonder. I was like, did Ta did he work hard enough like between years one and two? And man, Spo kind of qu he squashed all of that because Spo is like, “No, this dude works two if not three times a day. Like he works like a maniac.” But you know, you almost like when you’re when you can’t understand why a player goes from here to there, you’re almost just like searching and you’re just like, “Well, what the hell happened there?” But yeah, Spo says he works like a demon and you know, maybe there will be a bounceback, but it just it feels like something needs to break his way for that to happen because at the outright of the of the season right now, barring injuries, which there will be, but barring injuries, that it doesn’t seem like it’s there from the outset. Now, maybe he goes and he crushes it in camp and, you know, he stuffs Yoic in a locker and says, “Kick rock, Serbia, boy.” Like, I don’t know. But I I man based on how Nico’s looking, I don’t think that’s the case. I don’t think that’s going to be the case. I don’t know. But I don’t know. And uh it’s going to be it it is going to be an exciting thing to see how he bounces back and his ability to bounce back from this uh this sophomore slump that he had last year. I do like that he’s worked up with the mental coach and I do like the idea that he’s leaning into his strengths. He definitely said last year that, you know, his focus was lockown defender, knockdown shooter. He was neither of those. And I feel like it almost scattered. I I thought defensively he held his own his rookie year cuz Spo threw him in some deep waters. And I just felt like last year he was he almost seemed like a fish out of water. Like he was which is weird for Haime because Haime his footwork was so breathtaking and you’re just like ah this this guy’s going to flourish no matter what. So how does he get back to that? And so him being back to himself and getting into his comfort zones. Cool. I’d rather him be a better ver a better version of himself than an impostor of some basketball player that he has no chance of being. And he may never be a knockdown shooter. That may be okay. Like if he can go get buckets and he can be relentless and he can get put backs and he can cut. There were a lot of times that Haime was able to put up points not having plays called for him. Just relentless motor all over the place. Some call those intangibles. I’m not saying that, you know, I’m not saying that, but I but I I am, you know, wondering if if he can get back to that guy in there and seeing how this team is put together, if that opportunity will be there for him. So, we’ll see. He also, I guess, has a little bit of a relationship with Norman Powell. Not like a crazy one, but there’s a UCLA a little bit of a UCLA connection there. So, you lose Kevin Love, but you get Norman Powell, dude. So there’s that.

Tobin reacts to comments from Jaime Jaquez Jr. made this weekend at his camp. Can the Heat third year wing make a bounce back happen this year. How hard is it with how the roster is constructed?
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