The Miami Heat Did It Again
The Miami Heat’s entire offseason seemed as if it hinged on whether or not they would acquire Damian Lillard. After an Eastern Conference rival, the Milwaukee Bucks, swooped in and surprised everyone by making the move for Dame, it seemed like this would finally be the year that the Heat would fall off after years of outperforming the talent on the roster. Starting just 1–4 and then having a key player in Tyler Herro go down, those thoughts seemed to be reaffirmed, but they have managed to exceed expectations again largely due to the emergence of rookie Jaime Jaquez Jr.
Prior to Herro’s injury, Jaquez had been logging just under 20 minutes a night. Now, with the absence of a major scoring presence, Miami immediately elevated the rookie to a key rotational player, now getting over 30 minutes a night and often playing key crunch-time minutes. In these past 10 games, Jaime is averaging 15.6 points on incredible splits of 54.9/50/88.9. In Miami’s pivotal win over the Indiana Pacers, while star players Jimmy Butler and Tyrese Haliburton were dueling it out all night, the true story coming out of that game was how the Heat’s 18th pick looked like the best player on the floor down the stretch. In the final period, Jaquez scored 14 out of his 24 points and took on the role as the go-to guy.
While Jaime’s sophistication in his game is excellent for a rookie, it becomes more sensible when considering that he was a rare four-year college player. Players like Jaquez, Desmond Bane, and others who are older coming out of college often drop in the draft as they are seen as low-ceiling players, but we see time and time again how that experience can allow those guys to make an immediate impact on winning basketball. When observing Jaime’s game, you can immediately see that he is an incredibly polished player; there is little flash to his game, only simple yet effective fundamentals. Jaquez is certainly not an upper-echelon athlete but makes up for that and then some with his elite footwork. The Pacers were forced into bringing extra bodies to Jaime when posting up, as he was that dominant in the mid-range and around the rim. Jaquez as a whole is an extremely efficient player, mistakes and bad shots coming few and far between, which translates into his elite shooting and low turnover numbers.
While it is obviously exciting to see young talent playing well, as a diehard Celtics fan, seeing Miami finding another draft gem is so infuriating. Every time you think this team is finally going to die off, they find a new key rotational player out of nowhere. This is the value that elite coaching, culture, and infrastructure in the front office bring to a franchise. When you can find and develop talent like the Heat can, you are never truly out of it.
