Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
GABE COMING OF AGE
Vincent steps up as Heat’s newest developmental revelation
Sometimes it can be as simple as seizing the serendipity.
A year ago, in the wake of Miami Heat coach Erik Spoelstra shifting Goran Dragic to a reserve role and then Dion Waiters pouting his way into a suspension, Kendrick Nunn emerged as an opening-night revelation, going on to become runner-up for Rookie of the Year.
This time around, it is an unrelenting pandemic and the vagaries of contact tracing that have provided a canvas for Gabe Vincent, an unheralded guard who, until Tuesday night, had never scored more than nine points in an NBA game.
In the past two, he has scored 24 and 21.
“I mean opportunity comes few and far between,” the 6-foot-3 guard said. “You just try to be ready for when it does.”
When the Heat took flight a week ago, Vincent still was a relative unknown who had spent more time in the G League than NBA since going undrafted out of UC-Santa Barbara in 2018, a player who, when unable to get a summerleague tryout, worked instead with the Nigerian national team.
And then Avery Bradley found himself in coronavirus protocol over the weekend. And then Jimmy
Butler, Dragic and Nunn were removed from the equation apparently due to contact tracing.
Suddenly, a two-way player who had worn the colors of the Stockton Kings and Sioux Falls Skyforce was stepping into the Heat starting lineup to face the likes of Ben Simmons and Joel Embiid.
And thriving, a revelation to some, but not to Spoelstra, who had
received the scouting reports last season from Skyforce coach Eric Glass, who now is back on the Heat staff.
“In many ways, he was the most important player last year for EG going down the stretch,” Spoelstra said of the Heat’s G League affiliate moving into playoff position before the cancellation of that season. “Then we were really thrilled just to get him into our program during the summer. He had some really good weeks in the bubble. Then he has had to work on getting healthy. He had the procedure on his knee and he finally, probably for the first time in two years, feels great physically.
“His development has really been all across the board.”
With Dragic, Bradley and Nunn out, Vincent, 24, stepped in as the starting point guard the past two games, closing Thursday’s loss in Philadelphia with eight assists. It is part of a versatility that has served as an announcement that he is more than a 3-point specialist.
“I mean, this world loves labels,” last season’s G League Most Improved Player said of being viewed as a shooting specialist. “We’re so quick to label people for everything. But I’m a basketball player at the end of the day. I can make plays off the ball. I can make plays on the ball. I can handle it. I can defend.”
With Vincent on a two-way contract, he is limited to 50 games on the active roster over the pandemic-reduced 72-game schedule, with Thursday the fourth of those.
With the Heat’s roster and salary-cap situation, he likely will remain in that status at least until late in the season.
But like Nunn last season, his break arrived unexpectedly . . . and was seized.
“I mean it’s been a lot of ups and down,” the California native said, as the Heat turned their attention to Saturday night’s visit to AmericanAirlines Arena by the Detroit Pistons. “It’s not the typical journey you typically dream up as a kid when you’re growing up. But I’m just trying to take advantage of each opportunity I get. It comes in all different shapes and sizes, whether it’s playing with the Nigerian national team for our open session in the summer when I don’t get a summer-league invite, or being in the G League, just grinding that, and trying to get better each day.
“And that’s just something I’m trying to carry over now, of course, and getting some minutes and try to make the most of them and build on that.”