When he did manage to switch onto guards, that meant one of the Heat’s backcourt players was suddenly in a mismatch with a power player. Martin, best used defensively as a guard stopper, was suddenly tangling with players who had inches and dozens of pounds on him and his shooting efficiency dropped from both two and three-point range. However, he, through little fault of his own, wasn’t a quality power forward. Martin, a springy swingman, ably accepted the task and proved to be a quality starting player for the team. Tucker walk in free agency, the Heat asked the 6’5″ Caleb Martin to man the power forward spot to start the year. Grading the Heat centers and Miami’s longterm outlook at the position I don’t think we’ll get a regular season as good as 2022-23 from Butler ever again, if only because he will likely continue to miss games as the team preserves him for another postseason run, where he has shown time and time again he is up for any challenge. But even in those aforementioned poor games, Butler summoned enough late heroics to make all of those games interesting when things appeared to be heading sideways. Jimmy, long a marvel of excellence at the rim, was now fanning on routine layups, and he seemed to lose faith in his ability to convert shots as the battle scars of postseason basketball grew (though he denied all injuries/fatigue excuses). In fact, the latter half of his performances in the final three rounds are littered with some offensive duds (New York Game 7, Boston Game 6, Denver Game 5). Butler was absolutely stupendous against the Bucks, but following an ankle injury in Game 1 of the Conference Semifinals (Jimmy would miss Game 2), Butler was merely very good rather than absolutely sensational. But with the emergence of #PlayoffJimmy (27-7-6 on on 47-36-81 splits), a flaccid Heat offense was suddenly a giant slayer, with Miami galvanized by their superstar and rolling through the Eastern Conference. Though there’s a strong case that Bam Adebayo was Miami’s best player for at least the first half of the season, the Heat were still Butler’s team.ĭespite a career Butler year, the Heat limped into the postseason and appeared to be dead meat against the No. Butler’s elite combination of finishing at the rim, rarely committing turnovers (1.9 per game), getting to the foul line, and an actual respectable 3-point percentage for a change (35% on admittedly low volume) made him an advanced stats darling and the engine of a Heat team that lacked a ton of rim pressure outside of Butler. Then, somehow, Butler hit another gear after the break (he notably was not selected to the All-Star Game, but made the more prestigious All-NBA 2nd Team), upping his scoring to 25.6 PPG while putting together Durantian shooting splits of 62-48-85 over his final 20 contests. Even with that criticism, Butler’s pre-ASB break numbers (21.7 PPG, 6.0 RPG, 5.0 APG 51-30-85 shooting splits) were as good as he’s ever been. Jimmy Butler had one of the best regular seasons and postseasons in franchise history, so why the minus? Regular-season wise, availability was an issue with the 33-year-old Butler the Heat’s star missed 18 games and gave marginal effort in a handful of others, especially prior to the All-Star break. Let me preface by saying that this is grading on a steep curve. If you missed the prior report card on centers, you can read it here. Today, let’s look at the forwards on the Heat team. Considering how wildly different the regular season and postseason went for the team, each player will receive a regular season grade, a playoff grade, and a composite. With the 2022-2023 Miami Heat season now firmly in the rearview mirror and the sting of the NBA Finals loss dulled by the passage of time, I wanted to begin putting together grades for every player to have suited up for the Heat this past year.
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