(Photo via Imagn Images)
The Miami Heat brought veteran guard Alec Burks into the fold last offseason as their lone outside acquisition heading into the 2024-25 campaign. It was a low-risk vet minimum deal for one year, but Burks made that contract look like a bargain as the year went on.
For the first half of last season, the now 34 year-old saw himself mostly as insurance in coach Erik Spoelstra’s guard rotation. Dru Smith earned the backup point guard minutes with his encouraging defensive playmaking, until he went down with a season-ending injury.
That’s when Burks started to see his number get called more frequently.
By the Heat’s end-of-season playoff push and play-in tournament, he was promoted to Miami’s starting point guard. And his impressive shooting efficiency and reliability made it happen. In fact, Burks sported the team’s highest 3-point percentage on the roster at 42.5%.
He finished the season averaging 7.3 points, 2.5 rebounds, 1.1 assists on 43% from the field overall. However, it was the floor spreading ability that brought the biggest impact.
Alec Burks deserves another veteran minimum deal over Keshad Johnson’s standard contract.
The Heat still have one open roster spot midway through this summer’s offseason. But they could bring Burks back into the fold even without sacrificing that final spot.
Keshad Johnson was a standout 2024 summer league piece a year ago, and played his way to a two-way contract that was later converted into a standard. The Heat have opted to guarantee Johnson’s standard deal heading into the new 2025-26 season, as well.
The versatile forward had a strong performance in Miami’s recent summer league win versus the Boston Celtics, totaling 22 points and 4 rebounds on 80% shooting.
Despite that encouraging outing, Johnson struggled in essentially every other summer league game this year. He also never made the most of his opportunities with the Heat all throughout last season on the court. With Miami’s lone two-way contract featuring 7-foot Vlad Goldin, they have two open spots to fill there.
Considering he hasn’t proved to be much of a real Heat rotation piece yet, Johnson going back to a two-way would help fill out those three spots while opening up another standard— and Miami would still keep their current open roster spot to add another piece (backup big, perhaps).
Goldin, Johnson and a return of Dru Smith as the Heat’s three two-ways would be smart asset managing. It paves a way to find room for Burks to return, and still have flexibility to sign one more piece.
No matter what way they do it, Burks was nothing short of a true professional and impactful vet during his time with the Heat. He deserves to be brought back.
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They should have Burks over Johnson and get Boucher over Burks, if it comes to that.
How do you convert Johnson from a standard contract to a two way contract?
No they shouldn’t they should go after a backup center an the heat should sign seth curry