The Heat are guaranteeing the remainder of Haywood Highsmith‘s salary for 2022/23, tweets Tim Reynolds of The Associated Press.
Highsmith went undrafted in 2018 out of Wheeling University, a Division II school. Now in his third season, the 26-year-old has bounced between the NBA and the G League over the past five years, but appears to have found a nice niche with Miami.
His stats definitely don’t stand out — he’s averaging 4.3 PPG, 3.7 RPG and 1.0 SPG on .383/.310/.375 shooting (only 16 free throw attempts, so a very small sample size) through 27 games (19.5 MPG). However, Highsmith is a strong and versatile defensive player, as head coach Erik Spoelstra noted a couple weeks ago.
The combo forward only had a $50K partial guarantee entering the preseason, but that increased to $400K when he made the Heat’s regular season roster. He signed a three-year, minimum-salary deal with Miami last March, and his salary for next season is non-guaranteed.