A couple of weeks ago, I went through the changes that the Miami Heat made to their offense. We’ve seen the gradual drop off in their efficiency, a shift in their shot profile, and which play types they prefer to lean on.
Continuing with the changes in their offense, we’ll be digging deep into the individual players.
We went through the system. We went through the changes as a whole for the team. But equally as important in these changes is what happened with the players over the years.
The players and their skills, abilities, strengths, and weaknesses provide that foundation. The players make up the system, which is why as players develop, everything else can change, too. Other factors matter, too, such as players’ age, how much workload one can carry, their potential development, and how much stock you may have in a player.
This has been the reason for their gradual shift to this kind of offense. As discussed in that deep dive, the Heat have been trending towards a more isolation and post-up-based offense rather than the movement offense we saw in 2022. This means that certain players have drastically different play styles, too.
So, that’s what we’ll be looking at today.
Only four players are on the current team and played in 2020—Jimmy Butler, Bam Adebayo, Duncan Robinson and Tyler Herro. We’ll focus on their changes because we have all the data for them.
Jimmy Butler
Over the years, Butler has changed quite a lot about his game, especially compared to his first two seasons with the Heat.
Before even getting to how things changed, arguably the more important change is how often he’s being used in anything period. Here are his usage and tracking stats:
The first glaring change is he simply doesn’t have that many touches, nor does he dominate the ball as often. He had a career low in touches per 75, time with the ball in his hands, on-ball action share, scoring possessions per 75, total offensive load, and initiator rate. That’s understandable given his and how he ended each playoffs with an injury.
Although those stats aren’t available for different lineups, but if we look at his usage percentage with both Adebayo and Herro on the court, you can see another drop off. With both on, Butler has a 20.2% usage. It’s fair to assume a lot of those tracking stats would be even lower in those minutes, too.
That has been the biggest difference out of any year. We’ve never seen Butler be this little involved on the ball and that alone makes the biggest difference in the team’s offense as a whole.
When looking at his play type frequency and efficiency, there’s a noticeable shift.
Here’s his pick-and-roll frequency(and efficiency) since 2020 in the regular season:
- 35.5%(0.86) → 33.5%(0.92) → 21.9%(0.92) → 24.9%(1.09) → 20.7%(0.84)
He dropped his PNR frequency by almost 15%! In those two seasons, over a third of his offense was this and now it’s barely a fifth. His efficiency has been relatively steady outside of the 2023 season.
Instead, he’s been going for a lot more isolation and post ups:
- 16.5% → 15.8% → 27.2% → 26.5% → 26.0%
I’d assume that if the PNR usage drops, it would be because he’s more off-ball, but that’s clearly not the case. All it did is increase other on-ball usage, which came in that 2022 season. Over a quarter of his offense ends in isolation or a post up.
Although it makes more sense given his improve efficiency, particularly in isolation:
- 0.95 → 0.91 → 1.01 → 1.05 → 1.07
He had a career year creating a shot for himself in isolation. At the same time, he also had a career low in post ups with 0.84. A lot of that has to do with the shot profile and foul drawing that differs in those areas.
In isolation, Butler is a bigger foul merchant than prime James Harden. 27.7% of his isolation ends in shooting foul — Harden in 2019 was at 15.0%. Whereas in the post, it’s only 17.2%, so he’s not making up the efficiency with free throws, but is also struggling shooting from around the paint.
As noted, he has been used a lot more off-ball. That’s also shown in his spot up and cutting usage:
- 15.1% → 16.7% → 18.1% → 18.2% → 22.2%
Butler is almost used off ball just as much as he is in isolation and post ups, which is both good and bad, depending on how you look at it. He is a *very* efficient off-ball player. That’s how can easily feast. He scored 1.42 points per possession on cuts this year and 1.23 on spot ups! But there’s also a reason why he has to be more off-ball to preserve him.
One last point is that his transition has been steady both in efficiency and frequency. You can always count on him to get easy shots well.
For the most part, his shot profile remains the same. There’s no noticeable change in any of rim, short mid-range, or long mid-range frequency — there are some changes if we look at 2023, which was his career year for a reason.
A couple things to point out, though. He is taking the fewest pull up 2s with 18.1% of his shots. He still gets to the line just as easily. It looks like he has improved his pull up shooting to be roughly a 40% shooter compared to 34% in the first year.
Related to his spot ups, you can see the uptick in his 3pt volume. 9.2% of his shots came in the corner, up from his next highest at 6.3%. For the first time, he reached over 10% of his shots as catch and shoot from 3pt. He’s also shooting 40.7%, which is going to matter a lot if that is to remain.
Overall, the biggest change is easily the usage and tracking stats. But again that’s understandable, especially given what he does in the playoffs, where his usage skyrockets. But it’s also interesting to see wanting to be more in isolation and post up. Maybe that’s also down to age where he can slow it down and control the pace without always needing to go downhill.
Bam Adebayo
Adebayo is completely different to what we’ve seen from him in 2020. This is nowhere near the same kind of player. The touches and general involvement remains roughly the same:
Bam Adebayo's usage stats pic.twitter.com/Ts0wPddXZk
— John Jablonka (@JohnJablonka_) September 18, 2024
You can see that his touches, his on-ball percentage, scoring possessions, total offensive load, and dribbling are all within range. He hasn’t been used a lot more. He’s been used differently.
We went away from the passing hub being his primary role. His potential assists went from 9.0 in 2020 to 6.4 this year.
Although this doesn’t entirely show passing stats, it’s still worth noting. He averaged 7.8 elbow touches in 2020 and had it dropped to 5.4. We remember him being the hub for those handoffs at the elbow.
Here are Bam Adebayo's play types since 2020
— John Jablonka (@JohnJablonka_) September 18, 2024
Top chart is frequency(possessions per game)
Bottom chart is points per poss(eFG%) pic.twitter.com/6EryR0QqAD
But the biggest change has been the play types. Similar to Butler, his usage in isolation and post ups increased a lot.
- 14.4% → 22.4% → 24.1% → 24.0% → 32.2%
Adebayo has more of his offense in isolation and post ups than Butler does in those play types *or* PNR. It’s at the level as some of the Butler’s PNRs in previous years. That’s not even a big change. That’s a humungous change.
As seen, he also has almost 70 touches, 25% usage, and is involved in an offense 35% of the time. You combine *that* with the fact that almost a third of his offense is self created, and that’s a game changer.
The only issue with that is the efficiency:
- Isolation: 0.81 → 0.95 → 1.04 → 1.02 → 0.99
- Post ups: 0.90 → 0.98 → 0.98 → 0.95 → 0.99
When we include passes for this year, it’s not much better either. For both post ups and isolations, it jumps to 1.00.
One other significant change is where he’s placed off-ball and how he goes about it when he gets the ball. His cut usage declined by almost half:
- 24.0% → 20.4% → 19.5% → 15.7% → 14.0%
One reason for that is even when he’s off-ball, he doesn’t finish on those passes quickly. Here are the percentage of his 2s within 2 seconds:
- 58.1% → 55.3% → 52.5% → 51.5% → 43.4%
It’s a gradual decline over time. Now, whenever he gets the ball, it will turn into a post up instead. He will jab, hesitate, look to back down and go up for a shot then. That does hurt his efficiency a lot, though.
As a roll man, his frequency is the same, with slight fluctuation. The bigger issue there is with the efficiency:
- 1.18(62.4% eFG) → 1.32(67.7%) → 1.11(54.9%) → 1.14(55.1%) → 1.04%(51.5%)
Going down from over 1.2 points per shot to just over 1.02 is a huge difference. That difference can effect the whole team significantly(and it has).
The reason for all of this is the shot profile:
Here are Bam Adebayo's shot profile stats pic.twitter.com/30hAylz5a5
— John Jablonka (@JohnJablonka_) September 18, 2024
Look at that rim frequency and short mid-range. Over half of his shots were there in 2020. It was still in a good range in 2022 with 44.6%. It became worrying in 2023 with 35.7% and that was a sign that it had to change. It didn’t. It dropped to 30.5%.
At the same time, his short mid-range frequency reached over 50% in these two seasons. He’s good at those shots, not great or elite, but good enough — not good enough to have it be over half of his shots, though.
His long mid-range jumper is a consistent as the Heat’s health.
That’s where we see the drop offs in his play types. It’s relying on tough shots that even a good shooter will make 45-50%, which isn’t efficient at volume.
The best thing that has changed in his shot profile and hopefully it’s here to stay, it’s the 3pt shooting. That can change so much. That would hopefully replace a lot of those long mid-range shots, those catch and shoot 2s, give him a better option off-ball instead of being in the dunker, and it opens up for better shots as a popper.
Overall, the biggest change in his game has been falling in love with the mid-range and preferring that slow, grind, isolation in the post.
Tyler Herro
Surprisingly, Herro has remained roughly the same in almost all seasons after his rookie year. There has been an increase in his on-ball usage and how much of the offense he’s responsible for. But for the most part, both his play types and shot profile are all within a similar range:
Tyler Herro's usage stats pic.twitter.com/YbsSvQvagg
— John Jablonka (@JohnJablonka_) September 18, 2024
Starting from 2021, his usage and tracking stats look around the same. He had that 2022 season which was his most ball-dominant, most-used, and most involved season.
Here are Tyler Herro's play types since 2020
— John Jablonka (@JohnJablonka_) September 18, 2024
Top chart is frequency(possessions per game)
Bottom chart is points per poss(eFG%) pic.twitter.com/nGocXzpM7d
There isn’t any number or change that stands out. His PNR usage hovers around 30%, with some upticks here and there, particularly in 2023 and this years playoffs. When it comes to his efficiency:
- 0.71(39.2% eFG) → 0.91(50.5%) → 0.88(46.2%) → 0.93(50.8%) → 0.96(50.4%)
It has improved but it improved to around average. The shot profile and shot selection hurt him, as well as some deficiencies in off-dribble game. But one thing you can see is the big difference in his eFG and overall efficiency. He scores better than what number says, but he’s *awfully* turnover prone in the PNR.
The best thing about him is how consistent he’s been with the spot up efficiency:
- 1.31(68.0%) → 1.06(53.5%) → 1.23(65.4%) → 1.15(58.7%) → 1.11(57.7%)
Unfortunately, we again haven’t seen a change in the frequency:
- 17.4% → 20.2% → 15.0% → 18.9% → 18.0%
He only had one season with a fifth of his offense as spot ups. He’s *too* good of a shooter to have that be the case. This is also the case with his corner shooting. He’s been consistently elite at it.
Here are Tyler Herro's shot profile stats pic.twitter.com/Nf2HNS842l
— John Jablonka (@JohnJablonka_) September 18, 2024
With his shot profile, it’s another case of it’s roughly the same. There hasn’t been significant change in the same way it has been for either Butler or Adebayo.
Though, similar to Adebayo, there has been that preference for that short mid-range with 30.2% of his shots being there. But also, he has improved drastically in that area. He’s shooting 50% there! That’s almost 10% better than his rookie or sophomore season.
One concern about the lack of change is the split between pull up 2s and 3s:
- 27.4% vs 21.1% → 25.2% vs 20.5% → 28.1% vs 20.0% → 25.2% vs 23.4% → 24.4% vs 21.4%
Not a single season with more 3s than 2s. Math don’t like that.
Overall, there just hasn’t been much change in Herro’s game in terms of different shot profiles or play types. There has been a change in terms of simply getting better and developing those strengths.
Duncan Robinson
Arguably the biggest change out of anyone was Robinson because of where he started. Everyone else has already shown some level of what they’re doing now. With Robinson, a lot is completely new.
Duncan Robinson's usage stats per @The_BBall_Index pic.twitter.com/DAiHdmlPpw
— John Jablonka (@JohnJablonka_) September 18, 2024
Look at those differences in offensive involvement rate and on-ball action share in 2020 and now. That is simply not the same player period. Not only is he more involved in the offense in general, but his on-ball usage skyrocketed to levels that you’d expect from an average secondary creator.
Here are Duncan Robinson's play types since 2020
— John Jablonka (@JohnJablonka_) September 18, 2024
Top chart is frequency(possessions per game)
Bottom chart is points per poss(eFG%) pic.twitter.com/KQjSZFA5cU
A lot of this remains the same for him. He’s used just as much and is just as deadly without the ball as he has been in any other seasons(except that handoff in 2020 where it’s historic).
He has been used in different ways off-ball with having a good split between spot ups, handoffs, cuts, and off-screen. Four different ways of being used and being effective in each of those areas.
One fun stat is the roll man. It takes only around 2-3% of his possessions but it works with him being a screener at times. That’s a lot of him being an active screener and ghost screens.
What has changed the most is the PNR:
- 2.2% → 6.7% → 7.5% → 6.8% → 17.2%
Going from 2% to 17% is, again, a completely different player. Even when he was being used more in that the last three years, he almost tripled that usage.
Here are Duncan Robinson's shot profile stats pic.twitter.com/2vguBK2T1j
— John Jablonka (@JohnJablonka_) September 18, 2024
What’s also been fun seeing is him not being overly reliant on 3s. His rim frequency being at 15% is huge. That’s a real part of someone’s game then. That’s a considerable volume that makes a difference, especially if you’re shooting almost 70%. That’s another shot in your arsenal that’s highly efficient on top of another highly efficient shot.
The short mid-range counter is also nice to see. Having those counters are huge and he also shoots 48.3% within 4-14ft with 13.4% of his shots.
Overall, he has changed his game the most from when he started. As a result, his offense isn’t simply being a 3pt specialist overly reliant on others.
So, those are all the changes for each player. We saw both Adebayo and Butler transition for more isolation based offense, Herro remaining roughly the same, and Robinson completely re-defining his game.
Adebayo has fallen in love with the mid-range, but has also been toying with the idea of becoming a 3pt shooter. Butler has moved completely away from PNRs and made himself a more active, effective off-ball player. Herro has got better at everything he does from top to bottom, whilst remaining consistent at everything he was doing well. Robinson has added counters and made himself more versatile with the shot profile.
