8:20pm: Robinson inked a minimum-salary contract and it is now official, per NBA.com’s transactions log.
7:58pm: Orlando Robinson will be signing a standard contract with the Heat, a league source tells Anthony Chiang of The Miami Herald (Twitter link).
While the terms of the deal were not disclosed, Ira Winderman of The South Florida Sun Sentinel strongly implies (via Twitter) that the 7’0″ center will be receiving the veteran’s minimum. The move will also free up a two-way slot, as Robinson spent 2022/23 — his rookie season — on a two-way deal and was a restricted free agent after Miami issued him a qualifying offer.
As Winderman explains, moving Robinson to a standard deal creates room for the Heat to sign Jamaree Bouyea, Dru Smith and Jamal Cain to two-way contracts. The deals for Bouyea and Smith are already official, while Cain remains a restricted free agent for now.
Robinson, who turns 23 later this month, went undrafted in 2022 out of Fresno State. He originally signed an Exhibit 10 deal with the Heat, was waived before the season started, signed a two-way deal, was waived, and then inked another two-way deal for the rest of the season in December.
There was talk of converting Robinson’s two-way deal into a standard contract when he became a rotation regular due to injuries, but that didn’t come to fruition after the Heat signed veterans Kevin Love and Cody Zeller. Love re-signed with Miami, but Zeller remains a free agent.
Overall, Robinson averaged 3.7 PPG and 4.1 RPG in 31 games (13.7 MPG) for the Heat last season. He also had strong performances with their G League affiliate, the Sioux Falls Skyforce.
Miami already agreed to terms with another free agent center, Thomas Bryant, and has Love as another option in the middle. Robinson will have to earn his stripes in training camp in order to secure rotation minutes behind Bam Adebayo.
This made more sense before they used a spot on Thomas Bryant. I would also think Cain has a shot at 1 of the last 2 spots, but they still need help at smallball 5, and preferably that guy can also give them another option at the 4, b/c they could use another guy on the wing /guard for that final spot, despite the great fit of Smith on the 2 way
Always liked Bryant, dude has some fight in him – he just haven’t seemed to fully recover from that ACL (I recall this was a HEAT game just before the pandemic).
Who knows, this might be a precursor to the HEAT losing two of those young wings e.g. Caleb, Jovic, Jaquez.
They could be considering Jaime at smallball 5, in which case, it someone answers some of what I’m saying, but I would prefer a better defensive presence