IT WAS THE spring of 2018, and Chet Kammerer, a longtime member of the Heat’s player personnel department, was working out players for the upcoming NBA draft — one in which the Heat didn’t actually have any of their picks. At a private workout in Los Angeles, he saw a player who wasn’t on many draft boards, but one he felt personified what his team had so often found: an unheralded prospect, with a defined role, who could be a mainstay for years to come. That player was Duncan Robinson, the former D-III transfer turned Michigan standout. Kammerer turned to one of the then-24-year-old’s reps. “So, what’s the kid’s plan?” Kammerer asked. “This is our first workout,” the rep replied. “We don’t have a plan.”
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Even so, he slid down some draft …
Even so, he slid down some draft boards. “The doubt was whether he could really do much on offense,” says Chet Kammerer, Miami’s senior advisor of basketball operations. That criticism got back to Kentucky’s coaches. “Take your pretty jump-shooting bigs, and give me Bam,” Payne would tell NBA executives. “Give me the guy who will do anything to win — the guy who will block a shot at a critical moment, or switch onto a guard and shut him down.” The Heat tested Adebayo when they hosted him for a pre-draft workout. They put him through a “hands” drill in which a half-dozen staffers circled Adebayo, and chucked basketballs at him in random patterns. He caught every one. One Heat official asked Adebayo what percentage of corner 3s he could hit in practice. Adebayo answered with bravado: 60%. Prove it, they said. Adebayo hit 31-of-50 — 62%.
Robinson played at Michigan but was …
Robinson played at Michigan but was lightly pursued by NBA teams until he was spotted in a Los Angeles workout in 2018 by longtime Heat scout Chet Kammerer, who has a history of finding diamonds in the rough for Riley. The Heat got Robinson on their summer league team, and now he’s third in the NBA in 3-point field goal percentage (.462). “He’s one of the best shooters on this planet,” Spoelstra said. “He’s hungry, he’s driven and he’s ambitious.”