As G League team returns, decisions loom
For much of the past two seasons, the two-way game was a one-way street for the Miami Heat.
With the coronavirus pandemic effectively shuttering the Heat’s G League affiliate since the midpoint of 2019-20, players under two-way contracts had no Plan B when it came to the developmental aspects of such deals.
Now, with the Heat announcing this past week that the Sioux Falls
Skyforce will be back in business in 2021-22, and with the Heat deep into research mode at the pre-draft combine, the team’s next wave of two-way contracts will come with an increased sense of normalcy.
After the Heat elected to bypass the one-month G League mini-season in February due to the franchise’s quick turnaround from the 2020 trip to the NBA Finals, the Skyforce announced a limited portion of their schedule on Wednesday.
“We are absolutely thrilled beyond words to have Skyforce Basketball return to Sioux Falls,” Andy Elisburg, the Heat’s senior vice president of basketball operations, said in a statement. “All of us at the Miami Heat and Sioux Falls Skyforce are hard at work preparing to open the 2021-22 season.”
The Heat have taken a mixed approach with their two two-way slots since the inception of the program in 2017-18, sometimes with an eye toward added depth to the NBA roster, other times for full developmental-league immersion.
The Heat in 2017-18 opened with Matt Williams Jr. and Derrick Walton Jr. as their two-way players, before replacing Williams in that role with Derrick Jones Jr.
In 2018-19, the Heat’s two-way players were Duncan Robinson and Yante Maten.
In 2019-20, when the G League shut down for the season in March due to the pandemic, the Heat opened the season with Daryl Macon and Chris Silva as their
two-way players, before moving on to Gabe Vincent and Kyle Alexander.
This past season, Vincent and Max Strus held the team’s two-way slots.
Still to be determined by the NBA is whether two-way status in 2021-22 will revert to the previous time limits allowed in the NBA, or something closer to the larger amount of NBA availability allowed the past two pandemic-complicated seasons.
A constant for the Heat has been a willingness to graduate two-way players to standard contracts, as has been the case with Jones, Robinson, Maten and Silva.
Vincent and Strus are impending free agents, with the Heat still with time to extend qualifying offers to make them restricted free agents, able to therefore match outside offers.
Both had their moments this past season, as the pandemic, injuries and the compacted schedule offered ample opportunity.
After arriving as a shooting specialist, Vincent, 25, emerged as one of the Heat’s best on-ball defenders. He appeared in 50 of the 72 regular-season games, starting seven.
“Defensively, it was all just about making an impact,” he said. “And that’s where my presence could be felt.”
Strus provided the Heat with 3-point efficiency, potentially available as insurance should Robinson depart in free agency. He appeared in 39 regular-season games.
“For me,” Strus, 25, said, “I think you just look at Duncan.
I think I can be like him. He shoots 40 percent from three. So just getting the reps up like that, coming off screens, coming off pin-downs, handoffs, coming off ball screens, it’s just being able to shoot it off of any actions.”
With Vincent with three seasons of pro experience and Strus with two, neither necessarily sets up as a 202122 G League developmental prospect. That could leave the Heat to weigh whether the next step is one of the 15 standard roster spots.
After two seasons of mostly in-house development, there again is the cold reality of Sioux Falls. And that again has the Heat living both in the moment and with an eye toward the future.
For some Heat two-way players, the expiration date arrived swiftly. For others, it has led to full-scale NBA benefits.
The clock now is ticking again.
“I’m going to do whatever’s necessary,” said Vincent, who already has 11 games of experience in Sioux Falls, “whatever is needed for me to continue in this league, to continue forward.”