Nylon Calculus Rookie Review: What did the Heat see from Tyler Herro?

Even if the NBA regular season is canceled, we’ve seen enough to start assessing the first seasons of notable rookies. What did the Miami Heat get from Tyler Herro?

Tyler Herro looked like a knockdown shooter in his one season at Kentucky but a loaded roster didn’t allow opportunities for him to show a whole lot more. However, he reportedly impressed in workouts and worked his way up draft boards, before finally landing with the Miami Heat at the No. 13 pick.

Herro lit it up at Summer League and finally had an opportunity to show other parts of his skill set. He finished his rookie season averaging 12.9 points, 4.0 rebounds and 1.9 assists per game, with robust shooting percentages and more field goal attempts per minute than he had at Kentucky. How did his interrupted rookie season compare to expectations and what did we learn about the player he could be over the next few years?

What did we expect?

Our NBA draft analysts at The Step Back were particularly down on Herro, focusing in on his narrow profile as a shooter and his limited physical and athletic profile. In his last big board before the draft, Trevor Magnotti highlighted both concerns:

"A wing with a negative wingspan who shot 53 percent at the rim in the halfcourt, and scored a majority of his 3s in transition and from stationary spot-ups, is being hailed as a top-20 pick. Herro isn’t an athlete, and doesn’t really have the ancillary skills necessary to be a workable spot-up weapon, much less an elite one. I have a very difficult time seeing him even stick in the league past a rookie contract."

For Herro, this rookie season was about proving his value as a shooter, demonstrating that there could be more to his offensive game and that his negative wingspan and athletic limitations wouldn’t make him unplayable on defense. It would have been a positive sign for his future if he could have checked one or two of those boxes but he actually hit all three.

More from Nylon Calculus

• Nylon Calculus: Reviewing preseason predictions for the Western Conference
• Nylon Calculus: Reviewing preseason predictions for the Eastern Conference
• Nylon Calculus: LeBron James and the slam dunk aging curve
• The Whiteboard: Why has the NBA seen so many 50 point games this season?
• Nylon Calculus: 15 early season predictions for the NBA Western Conference

What did we get?

Herro certainly made good on his potential as a spot-up shooter, shooting 39.1 percent on 3-pointers overall and ranking in the 94th percentile in scoring efficiency on spot-up possessions. However, he also showed that there is potentially a lot more to his shooting profile, separate from any upside he might have as a creator.

The ability to space the defense with off-ball movement is a much rarer attribute than applying pressure with static spot-ups. Herro had limited opportunities to shoot coming off screens at Kentucky but he saw nearly two such possessions per game with the Heat, ranking in the 86th percentile in scoring efficiency. The only players who scored more efficiently coming off screens than Herro (in at least as many total possessions as he saw) were Doug McDermott, Kawhi Leonard and Landry Shamet.

That skillset could add plenty of dynamism over the next few seasons to a Heat offense that relies a lot on pick-and-roll and dribble handoffs, with aging ball-handlers like Goran Dragic and Jimmy Butler. The Heat ranked near the bottom of the league in player movement and ball movement this year and Herro’s ability to shoot off movement offers another path forward as the roster turns over.

In terms of upside, the next level for Herro is leveraging that shooting ability with the ball in his hands. He made just 32.5 percent of his pull-up 3-pointers this season but using the same visualization from our Darius Garland review a few days ago, we see that actually puts him in fairly reasonable company among rookies over the past seven seasons.

It’s on far fewer attempts, but Herro made a higher percentage of his pull-up 3-pointers than Trae Young or Luka Doncic did as rookies. In another positive sign, he made a slighter higher percentage (34.5) on pull-up 3s that came after three or more dribbles, a group that filters down to attempts where he’s really using his handle to create space for himself. He also made a healthy 38.4 percent of his pull-ups inside the arc, a shot that should be an option of last resort but is still necessary for the toolbox of a three-level scorer.

And the idea of Herro as a three-level scorer seems much more viable than it did at Kentucky and far more concrete than it did even after summer league. He still has a lot of work to do on decision-making with the ball — something that hopefully comes with more reps creating in Miami’s offense — but there were plenty of positive signs. His drive statistics were not elite but he finished well compared to the rest of this rookie class and didn’t seem to have any problem using screens or attacking off-balance defenders to get into the lane.  He averaged nearly as many potential assists (5.1) per 36 minutes as R.J. Barrett (5.5) did for the Knicks, at least hinting at his ability to be a viable secondary creator.

Herro’s individual defense looked problematic by most all-in-one metrics. He was also near the bottom of the rookie class in terms of deflections, steals and blocks per 36 minutes. However, the Heat’s defensive rating was essentially unchanged when he was on or off the court, indicating that putting strong defenders around him could let him play big and meaningful minutes without compromising the integrity of the team’s system.

Herro may not be on his way to stardom but his rookie season certainly implies that his ceiling is higher than it looked predraft and he could be a key piece for a good team. In short, the Heat have gotten just about everything they could have hoped for so far.