The Heat have signed undrafted rookie Jamal Cain, the team announced. According to Barry Jackson and Anthony Chiang of The Miami Herald, Cain received an Exhibit 10 contract.
Cain spent four seasons with Marquette, averaging 5.2 PPG and 3.9 RPG in 18.3 MPG across 120 games (31 starts). After graduating, he transferred to Oakland University, where he had a breakout season in 2021/22.
The 6’7″ forward averaged 19.9 PPG, 10.2 RPG and 1.8 SPG on .499/.298/.841 shooting in 30 games (35 MPG) for Oakland, earning first-team All-Horizon honors and Horizon League Player of the Year. He’s appeared in three total games with the Heat’s Summer League squad, averaging 7.7 PPG, 5.0 RPG and 2.3 SPG.
As Jackson and Chiang detail, Cain had to isolate for six days in a San Francisco hotel after contracting COVID-19, causing him to miss some Summer League action. He said the Heat “like how I can guard multiple positions, the way I can defend, the way I can rebound, the way I can kind of be all over the floor. Just play to my strengths, trying to be athletic on the rim, trying to take advantage of mismatches and stuff like that.”
Cain has also spoken to Kendrick Nunn, a former Heat guard and Oakland University product, about his experience with Miami and what it takes to be successful there, per Jackson and Chiang.
While Cain is probably a long shot to earn a spot on Miami’s 15-man regular season roster, an Exhibit 10 contract can be converted to a two-way contract before the regular season begins. It also makes a player eligible for a bonus worth up to $50K if he’s waived before the season and then joins his team’s G League affiliate.
He has good size, and moves his feet decently well, and might be able to guard smalls. He needs to improve his discipline defensively though, as he bites on way too many fakes, but that’s something that can be worked out. I still have some games to catch up on, so I’m interested to see more of how he looks/hopefully a bigger sample size
He is probably the only guy outside of their guards that are somewhat interesting on this summer league roster. I dont like him as much as DJ Stewart jr and others from last year, but we’ll see how the rest of these games go, and the time in between now and training camp, and then training camp itself b/c DJ Stewart grew exponentially in that time last year, and so he has a chance to do the same
Is he Riley’s next Anthony Mason?