Hollinger: Heat, Suns have survived NBA’s early grind; scouting Miami’s Jaime Jaquez Jr.

NEW YORK – Well, this wasn’t quite what I signed up for when I booked this trip.

On a weekend journey in the Big Apple, I got to see the Miami Heat without Jimmy Butler and the Phoenix Suns without Kevin Durant after both were late scratches against Brooklyn and New York, respectively.

Welcome to the grind, everyone: With the first month out of the way, we’re now in the part of the season when several teams are being graded on tests they were hoping they’d never have to take. Trading for superstars is fun and certainly eventful, but a lot of what happened this weekend came down to mastering the boring drudgery of mid-July minimum contracts and two-ways.

And while the two visiting teams I saw were far from full strength, both are passing this particular test with flying colors. Right now, it’s the difference between teams like Phoenix and Miami, who sit somewhere in the nebulous terrain between surviving and thriving, and others like, say, Memphis or Charlotte, whose second-line players have been brutally exposed under the harsh light of early-season injuries.

The Heat, for instance, lost in Brooklyn with a skeleton crew Saturday, but still enter Monday with a 10-7 record and a positive net rating despite only having one player (rookie Jaime Jaquez Jr.; more on him below) who has been in the lineup for all 17 games. In addition to Butler and Bam Adebayo each missing three games thus far, Miami has only had Tyler Herro for eight games and Caleb Martin for seven. Nonetheless, the Heat, as ever, have cobbled together enough workable lineups from two-way contract players, past reclamation projects and assorted people named Robinson to stay afloat in the East playoff race.

Miami had won nine of 10 before stumbling twice in New York, including a six-of-seven stretch on the road. The road-weary Heat have only had five home games the entire season, but will only leave Florida for one day between now and Christmas unless they have extra In-Season Tournament business.

Similarly, the Suns are thriving despite using a very different lineup than they expected. This arguably should be a much bigger story than it has been. With the exception of Nassir Little, their bench is made up entirely of minimum-contract guys.

In the case of both teams, it’s amazing the difference a few weeks makes. Again, we’re all probably guilty of wanting to overact to the first week. Miami started 1-4, with the lone win a one-point home escape against the lowly Detroit Pistons. When I last checked in with the Suns, they had pulled off the seemingly impossible feat of losing consecutive home games to the San Antonio Spurs. Those 36 hours still represent the entirety of the Spurs’ regulation wins this season, as well as the last time they won at all.

In some ways, the big-picture perspective on the Suns’ season has hardly changed since then. The Suns still have yet to see their big three of Bradley Beal, Devin Booker and Durant together for a single minute and have not even had a big two for seven of their 17 games. Beal has played just 86 minutes and isn’t expected back any time soon, while Booker has only played nine games. As you might expect, that has left the Suns playing a bit choppily and not quite at the exalted title-contending level of their dreams. We have no idea what the peak version of this team looks like.

Nonetheless, in other, subtle ways, the Suns have changed quite a bit. Sunday’s win over the Knicks was the Suns’ sixth-straight road win and was accomplished with Booker riding solo while Durant played it safe with a sore foot and Beal continues to sit out with a back strain. (While we’re here: Durant is 35 and has had a Jones fracture, so “sore foot” isn’t something you mess around with in his case. Watching him warm up before the game at Madison Square Garden, he looked like a guy who wanted to play but knew he shouldn’t, and that was absolutely the right call.)

While the Suns aren’t quite at the top of the conference (Side note: Thunder–Timberwolves on Tuesday! Battle for first place! Who knew?), their standing at third place in the West is a fairly impressive accomplishment given how little their stars have played and their relatively unfriendly early schedule. The Suns will head to Toronto on Wednesday, but once they leave Canada, they will play 13 of their next 16 scheduled games at home, with a likely quick trip to L.A. to face the Lakers in the In-Season Tournament quarterfinals thrown in, and perhaps a short hop to Vegas after that.

Suns coach Frank Vogel offered the succinct explanation of “Defense travels” for why his team was able to muster six straight victories away from home. That may seem a bit haughty for a team ranked 19th in points allowed per 100 possessions, but with the way this roster was constructed, an average defense was going to be a huge win. The underlying numbers tell a better story too, with the Suns being notably stingy with allowing few opponent 3-point attempts and, believe it or not, leading the NBA in blocked shots.

Unlike most teams that rack up a big block total, this isn’t a story of one or two prolific rim protectors; it’s a true team effort. The Suns don’t have a single player in the league’s top 15 in blocks, but lead the league as a team because all 11 players with at least 100 minutes played have blocked at least four shots — even Booker, who had two Sunday in New York. Minimum contract guys Drew Eubanks and Keita Bates-Diop have rejected 32 in just 574 combined minutes. Newcomer Jusuf Nurkić has added 22 … nearly doubling the departed Deandre Ayton’s total. Eric Gordon, at 6 foot 3 and age 34, has nine.

It underscores the extent to which the Suns passed their real offseason test — not trading for Beal, but finding value on the market with minimum contract guys and trade throw-ins once that was done. In Sunday’s 116-113 win over New York, Booker was the star, making a fading 3-pointer on the move against a double-team with 1.7 seconds left and finishing with 28 points and 11 assists. In the wake of Chris Paul’s departure, “Point Booker” has gone swimmingly thus far.

WATCHING ON REPEAT ALL NIGHT 🙌 pic.twitter.com/JkgQtpNsuK

— Phoenix Suns (@Suns) November 27, 2023

Ye the real story of the game was how the Suns were able to surround him with so much help, leading comfortably at halftime despite a miserable shooting start from Booker. Gordon scored 25 points on Sunday; Yuta Watanabe and Chimezie Metu came off the bench to hit two 3s each and, more improbably in Metu’s case, an off-the-dribble running floater going left; sparkplug forward Little added 11 points in his 20 minutes; and Beal-trade throw-in Jordan Goodwin was outstanding, with 14 points, seven rebounds and five assists in his extended 28-minute stint.

It was a true team effort, one that underscored the similar team effort of the last several weeks. In the Suns’ six-game road winning streak, the first two came without Booker, the last two without Durant and all six without Beal.

Go through the stats, and you’ll notice all of Phoenix’s budget supporting cast members are pulling their weight in lower-usage roles. Setting aside Booker and Durant, the other top seven players in minutes all have a PER above 12 and a BPM greater than -2, which, for the uninitiated, basically means they’re delivering rotation-caliber minutes at a replacement-level price. The Suns found players who produced enough offense to keep things humming, but packed enough defensive wallop to lead the league in blocks.

College coaches will use the phrase “survive and advance” to describe the NCAA Tournament, and something like that is what’s happening for NBA teams when the inevitable midseason absences hit. The biggest story in Miami and Phoenix is still what those teams look like when they (hopefully) have all their stars on the floor in a playoff game. But the only reason we can still ponder that question is because of how well they’re weathering the stars’ absence.

Cap geekery: The Dru Smith injury

Miami lost guard Dru Smith for the season to a knee injury in Cleveland, and while our Joe Vardon covered the questions about the Cavaliers’ unusual court, there is another issue to unpack.

Smith had a non-guaranteed contract, which theoretically made it easy for the Heat to move on from his salary and open a roster spot by waiving him. That was important, in turn, because the Heat right now are $14 million over the luxury-tax line. At some point, depending on how future trades shake out between now and the January deadline for guaranteeing contacts, it might have become necessary to release him to remove salary and either get below that tax line or reduce the Heat’s penalty.

The Smith injury takes that possibility out of play by effectively guaranteeing his contact for the season. A little-known stipulation in the CBA called “salary continuation payments” requires teams to keep paying an injured player for the remainder of the current season if he is hurt while performing for the team. That payment continues until he is healthy enough to return to play or the end of the season, whichever comes first, and applies even if his contract wasn’t guaranteed.

That means the Heat are now on the hook for Smith’s entire $1.8 million salary, one that will cost them $2.01 million toward their luxury-tax calculation because of another arcane rule that prices undrafted players with zero or one year of experience at the veteran’s minimum salary for that year. Miami, standing $14 million over the tax line with Smith’s salary, will owe an additional $4.5 million in luxury-tax penalties on that salary.

In reality, the impact may be less. Miami is likely to make some kind of deal between now and the trade deadline to reduce its tax burden; the big difference now is that Smith’s deal is all but certain to be part of it. Whether alone or as part of a bigger trade, look for the Heat to pay another team to take on the $1.8 million obligation to Smith and remove it from Miami’s tax calculation. (The Heat would still need to fill his roster spot, but it would be with a less expensive partial-year salary.)

Rookie of the Week: Jaime Jaquez Jr., SF, Miami

Saturday was my second time seeing Jaquez in-person this month, which probably makes it a good time to start talking about the fifth-leading scorer among rookies at 11.2 points per game. Jaquez scored 18 against Brooklyn as a short-handed Miami team lost; after a slow start, he’s scored double figures in nine of his past 10 games, including 20 in an earlier visit to Atlanta where I also saw him.

What makes this so impressive in Jaquez’s case is that he wasn’t really drafted to be a scorer, and yet has shown enough juice on the ball to score a respectable 21.4 points per 100 possessions on 59.6 percent true shooting. Combined with his tough, handsy defense, Jaquez has been great value at the 18th pick for a team that sorely needed to find another contributor in the draft.

Even Jaquez’s alleged weaknesses have been strengths, at least so far. Not regarded as a shooter, he’s made 40 percent from 3 and 82.4 percent from the line so far, albeit on low volume from the perimeter. The whims of 3-point variance may fade that start, but his shot chart is heart-warming too, with just 10 percent of his shots coming from the midrange.

Additionally, Jaquez also has great footwork on the block and in the basket area and is able to score effectively from floater range, one of the toughest skills to pick up at this level. That also leverages his passing ability when he gets a mismatch. Watch here as he patiently backs down a Brooklyn defender, then finds Caleb Martin open on the perimeter:

I also like Jaquez as a secondary playmaker because of his ability to read the game and create plays for others. He’s averaging 4.6 assists per 100 possessions this year and is posting a low turnover rate for a rookie. For instance, watch this brilliant hit-ahead pass on the move in transition that Butler converts into an and-1:

Jaquez’s tape includes multiple touch passes like this, lopped over a fronting defender; he had another to Kevin Love on Saturday. Here’s a more basic play, at least at first glance, but watch how Jaquez comes off the screen, pulls up his dribble and realizes the pass to Adebayo is closed off. He holds Zach LaVine with his eyes, however, opening the pass to the perimeter for a Josh Richardson 3-pointer.

If there’s a question about Jaquez, it’s how much he can scale up offensively from here. He’s still in a relatively low usage role and doesn’t have the burst to generate shots easily, instead leaning heavily on strength and craft to get to his spots. He also has an absurdly low free-throw rate and desperately needs to study some of teammate Kyle Lowry’s foul-grifting schemes.

Nonetheless, the 6-6 forward doesn’t need to go ballistic on offense to have value because he’s held up so well on the defensive end, too. Jaquez is tough, strong and handsy, with a 2.0 percent steal rate, and has good feet; he gets his thefts without veering outside Miami’s scheme.

Overall, Jaquez is offering tremendous value for where he was picked and has to have several teams that picked ahead of the Heat scratching their heads (Orlando, Indiana, Toronto, Atlanta and the Lakers all could have used him and instead drafted players who have contributed … less). On a Miami team that likely will be tap-dancing around the luxury-tax line for at least two seasons after this one, having a starting-caliber player on a rookie contract is a massive win.

Prospect of the Week: Alijah Martin, 6-2 junior, SG, Florida Atlantic

OK, I get the resistance here. Martin is 6-2, will be 22 on draft day and is not a point guard. He also had a bumpy start to his 2023-24 campaign after recovering from an offseason stress fracture.

Nonetheless, Martin showed this weekend why he should be on draft radars — and why it was insane he wasn’t invited to either combine when he dipped his toe in the draft pool a year ago. Martin scored 25 points and added seven boards in FAU’s win over No. 12 Texas A&M on Friday, then added 17 points, eight boards and four assists in the Owls’ 84-50 rout of Virginia Tech to win the ESPN Events International tournament on Sunday.

Martin popped on the radar after scoring 26 points in the Final Four against San Diego State a season ago and now will be tested on a more nightly basis after FAU jumped up in conference equality (to the AAC) and scheduled stronger non-conference fare. Battles against Illinois, Arizona, Charleston and St. Bonaventure await in December, for instance. Unlike last year, scouts will be seeing plenty of FAU this time around; his teammates Johnell Davis and Vlad Goldin also are on scouts’ watch lists.

The case for Martin is built around strength, athleticism and shooting. Although he doesn’t get many on-ball pick-and-roll reps, Martin is a good shooter with deep range (career 37.6 percent on high volume) and a quick release. Watch here as he gets into a shot on the move and splashes in a 3 in Thursday’s win over Butler:

#FAU G @Martin_Alijah is starting to WARM UP as he knocks down BACK-TO-BACK shots from the perimeter! 🔥 pic.twitter.com/4DIbC6jhva

— FAU Owls Nest (@FAU_Owls_Nest) November 23, 2023

Martin also shows enough court vision in his grab-and-go opportunities to think he can handle secondary playmaking responsibility, with a respectable assist rate.

About the “grab” part — Martin is an explosive leaper in traffic and has some truly impressive contested rebounds on his resume. He also has some cool dunks, including this rim-rocker in the Elite Eight against Kansas State last March:

ALIJAH MARTIN RISES UP 😮#MarchMadness @FAUMBB pic.twitter.com/ETFfWCW7dc

— NCAA March Madness (@MarchMadnessMBB) March 25, 2023

Martin’s career rebound rate of 11.2 percent is better than that of many forwards. That, plus his solid build, should allow him to play much bigger than his size and can give him a chance to defend switches by burrowing under opponents. On the ball, he shows good feet navigating screens and explodes up to challenge shots, although his lateral quickness is probably more “pretty good” than “elite.”

Martin’s pathway to the league is likely as a 3-and-D shooting guard, and between his size and his age, he profiles more as a second-round pick or a two-way contract player. Nonetheless, players like this who stuff the stat sheet in secondary categories (Martin has a 2.8 percent career steal rate too) have an outsized track record of surprising at the NBA level. Combined with pro-caliber athleticism and shooting ability, he should get strong consideration in a weak draft.

---

(Top photo of Devin Booker: Wendell Cruz / USA Today)