Heat second-year wing Jaime Jaquez Jr. had a strong rookie season, finishing fourth in Rookie of the Year voting, but he followed up that successful campaign with a quieter year. He finished the year averaging 8.6 points (down from 11.9 last season) and was out of the rotation at times.
“It was an extremely humbling experience,” Jaquez said during his exit interview, per Ira Winderman of South Florida’s Sun Sentinel. “Sometimes things don’t go your way, and sometimes only after do you realize why that had happened to you.”
Jaquez’s efficiency took a slight hit in his second season, and he wound up playing fewer minutes game to game.
“Clearly has to work on some things, which he will,” coach Erik Spoelstra said. “He’ll work on defending in open space, defending situationally in our system, outside shooting will be key again, but he was working on that last summer. I think a full summer again, I think you’ll see big progress. He was coming out of training camp shooting the ball great. So I think we can fast track that.
“And, then, ultimately the hardest one is decision making. Schemes have changed against him. He has to be aggressive, but now there’s going to be different schemes and you graduate to different levels to this. And when there’s a second defender, making the right read and finding open guys, when he’s in a crowd.”
We have more from the Southeast Division:
- The Hawks are already seeing the rewards of the deal that sent Dejounte Murray to the Pelicans, Lauren L. Williams of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution writes. Dyson Daniels was the prime acquisition from that move, and he came away with the NBA’s Most Improved Player award after establishing himself as one of the league’s premier defenders. In addition to gaining a franchise staple, they added a veteran leader in Larry Nance Jr. in that same trade and two first-round picks.
- Atlanta sending De’Andre Hunter to the Cavaliers at the deadline also looks like a win-win, Williams writes in another piece. Although he’s dealing with an injury now, he quickly established himself as a crucial bench piece for Cleveland while the Hawks obtained cap flexibility by acquiring an expiring contract in Caris LeVert while avoiding paying Hunter the $48.2MM in guaranteed money he’s due over the next three years.
- Cory Joseph said during his exit interview that this past season with Orlando was his favorite in his career, Jason Beede of the Orlando Sentinel writes. The 33-year-old played the mentor role but ended up becoming the Magic‘s starting point guard by the end of the year after the team dealt with injuries. “Being able to come here and feel like it was a perfect fit for me, in terms of where the team was and where I was … I really enjoyed my time this season being here,” Joseph said. The Magic have a team option on his deal worth $3.4MM. He expressed interest in returning to Orlando for his 15th season, per Beede.