During this past offseason, one of the Miami Heat’s top priorities was to re-sign sharpshooter Duncan Robinson, who played a large part in the Heat’s three-point offense over the previous two seasons. Shooters are paid a premium in this league, and Duncan was certainly no exception. The Heat signed him to a five-year, $90 million contract on August 3, 2021. Five months into his contract, no other Heat player has come under more scrutiny. In the eyes of some basketball fans, Duncan has not lived up to the expectations of being the fourth highest-paid player on the team.
One reason for this reaction may be his uncharacteristic slow start to the season. In his first 20 games this season, Duncan shot 33.9% from beyond the arc on nine attempts a game. While this may not seem too bad at first, consider that Duncan’s career average from three is 40.7%. These expectations aren’t made better by the fact that minimum contract players on the Heat, such as Max Strus and Gabe Vincent, are producing similar numbers on better percentages. Strus, in particular, has played a similar sharpshooting role this season and is excelling in it despite only making 9% of Duncan’s contract.
To see if Duncan truly is worth his contract, it’s important to look at other players around the league in similar roles. Davis Bertans and Evan Fournier both come to mind considering they’re the respective sharpshooters for their teams and make around the same money as Duncan. This season, Fournier shoots 38.9% from beyond the arc on seven attempts a game while Bertans converts 32.4% of his threes. Duncan seems to sit right in the middle of these two in terms of efficiency, converting on 35.2% of his threes for the season.
Despite these early setbacks, Duncan seems to be on the right track again if recent games are any indication. In the last 10 games, Duncan has looked like the player that was deserving of that large contract back in the summer. He’s converting threes at a 42.4% clip in this stretch as well as improving on his defense and playmaking abilities. Duncan has been essential to the Heat’s success recently and it would be foolish to include him in trade talks for anyone not named Bradley Beal. As long as he keeps playing like this, it shouldn’t be questioned why the Heat made him such a high priority to re-sign.
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