DENVER — Caleb Martin of the Miami Heat spent the first two seasons of his professional basketball career shuttling between NBA and G League assignments.
Charlotte Hornets. Greensboro Swarm. Heat. Sioux Falls Skyforce.
Undrafted after a college career at North Carolina State and Nevada, Martin used two-way contracts (playing in both the NBA and G League) to prove he belonged in the NBA. Last summer, Martin signed a three-year, $20.4 million contract with Miami after a productive regular and playoff season and is a valuable contributor.
“The G League has improved tremendously,” Martin said. “They do a great job even promoting the guys that are playing there. Luckily enough when I was playing there, especially in Greensboro, I was on NBA assignment. So, I had the luxury of being able to play heavy minutes and get plays and get shots.
“But it really got me better just playing and learning how to play and being in a different environments and positions.”
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Martin’s story is not unusual. Several players have used the G League to establish NBA careers.
What makes Martin’s story different is that he is one of the undrafted Heat players who were overlooked, cast off by other teams and used the G League to improve and land an NBA deal.
It is specific to how the Heat build a roster. Martin, Duncan Robinson, Max Strus, Gabe Vincent and Haywood Highsmith are among the undrafted Miami players who have made notable contributions in the playoffs, helping the No. 8 seed in the Eastern Conference reach the NBA Finals against the Denver Nuggets.
The Heat are invested significantly in this area of roster building. They were among the first NBA teams who realized the value of the G League and understood it as a place where they could develop players who fit their system. Heat president Pat Riley and his trusted basketball operations executives Andy Elisburg and Adam Simon are looking for players who can shoot, defend, fill a specific, complementary role to leading players and have mental toughness. Then, the Heat’s coaching staff puts those players into a developmental program.
“The undrafted guys, it depends whatever your organizational philosophy is,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said. “We don’t typically have a ton of draft picks. That’s just us. It’s not right or wrong. That’s just our philosophy. So we have to stockpile and develop our talent base sometimes in different ways to fill out a roster. … But if you have a big dream and want to be challenged, we feel like we can be the place for a lot of those kind of guys.”
Robinson is the modern example of the Heat’s plan to find and develop players who weren’t even second-round picks. Robinson started his college career at Division III Williams College and transferred to Michigan. No one drafted Robinson in 2018 and he joined the Heat’s Summer League team which earned him a two-way contract.
He spent a majority of 2018-19 playing for Sioux Falls and then started 68 of 73 games for the Heat in 2019-20, enjoying a significant role on a team that played in the NBA Finals in the Orlando bubble. He averaged 13.5 points and shot 44.6% from the field.
He signed a five-year, $90 million contract in 2021. This is how good the Heat are at this. Strus went undrafted in 2019 after playing at Division II Lewis University and DePaul and signed a two-way contract. He worked his way into the starting lineup, replacing Robinson who was affixed to the bench this season until injuries to Victor Oladipo and Tyler Herro thrust him back into the rotation in the playoffs.
Against the Boston Celtics in the conference finals, Martin averaged 19.3 points and 6.4 rebounds and shot 60.2% from the field and 48.9% on 3-pointers. He was one vote shy of winning MVP of the East finals. Martin, Vincent and Robinson averaged double-figures in points and Strus had 9.4 points per game.
“It’s all about timing and fit,” Spoelstra said, “and what a player’s fortitude is.”
