5 former Heat players to sign on veteran minimum deals, ranked

No. 1 former Heat player turned free agent: Kendrick Nunn

Kendrick Nunn split last season between the Lakers and the Wizards. He arrived in Washington ahead of the trade deadline and delivered steady results off the bench: 7.5 points and 1.8 assists in 14.1 minutes per game. Not that long ago, of course, Nunn was an everyday starter for Miami averaging over 14 points per game.

A knee injury sidelined Nunn for the entire 2021-22 season before he returned to action with the Lakers last year. He has struggled to return to his prior form, in part due to LA’s depth in the backcourt and in part due to the shifting nature of NBA basketball

Nunn fits a dated player archetype: he’s a 6-foot-2 guard with score-first tendencies and no discernibly elite athletic trait. He doesn’t defend very well and his 1.8:1.1 assist-to-turnover ratio with the Wizards isn’t something to write home about. He’s a bursty driver with real pull-up shooting equity, but there’s only so much mileage one can get out of undersized scorers who get played off the floor in high-leverage matchups.

The 27-year-old probably has the highest ceiling of the players listed. His microwave scoring ability projects easily into most second units and he’s a fairly versatile offensive player, capable of leading the charge and running pick-and-rolls or operating off the ball and attacking closeouts on the perimeter. He’s younger than Dragic; Winslow and Jones are frequently ignored by opposing defenses. For those reasons, Nunn gets the nod, even if he has his own hurdles to clear defensively.