The Miami Heat didn’t know what to expect when it signed center Dewayne Dedmon for the remainder of the season on April 8.
Dedmon is an experienced veteran who has proven his worth in the NBA and has started 116 games in the previous three seasons. But the 31-year-old had been out of the league this season until the Heat signed him, with his last NBA game coming on March 11, 2020.
“You have to be objective about it. When somebody has been out that long, you just don’t know,” coach Erik Spoelstra said, with the Heat (33-30) in the middle of a rare two-day break before Saturday’s matchup against the Cavaliers in Cleveland. “Without a training camp, without the bubble experience, that’s a lot of time off. And you don’t know how players are going to respond.”
So far, so good.
With the Heat battling to avoid the play-in tournament and move up the Eastern Conference standings, the signing of Dedmon is already yielding positive results in important moments. Dedmon finished Wednesday’s home win against the San Antonio Spurs, his eighth appearance in a Heat uniform, with 18 points on 7-of-8 shooting, nine rebounds and one block in 16 minutes off the bench.
The Heat remains in seventh place in the East with nine regular-season games left to play. Only two games separate the No. 4 and No. 7 playoff seeds in the East.
“He really takes care of his body, so I think that helped him immensely and then it’s not like he’s a young inexperienced player,” Spoelstra said. “He’s a veteran experienced player who has played in a lot of systems, and he has been a starter for a decent portion of his career. So now if you just compact those minutes into what we’re doing, 15 to 18 minutes, it’s all energy. He empties the tank, which is great.”
Dedmon’s most impressive stint Wednesday came in the third quarter, as he was on the court for the entirety of the Heat’s 15-0 run to close the period to turn a seven-point deficit into an eight-point advantage entering the fourth. With starting center Bam Adebayo on the bench for a breather, Dedmon recorded six points with the help of 4-of-5 shooting from the foul line and five rebounds during that stretch.
“It has been working out so far,” Dedmon said of his energy role off the Heat’s bench. “So I’m not really here to complain about my minutes or whether I’m playing or not playing. I’m just here to have fun and do what I do when I get on the court, and it’s working out for the team.”
Dedmon and Adebayo have not played together yet this season, with Spoelstra opting to stagger their minutes. With the help of Dedmon’s standout performance, Miami was able to turn the usually shaky non-Adebayo minutes into positive ones against San Antonio.
The Heat outscored the Spurs by 11 points with Dedmon on the court in place of Adebayo.
“He was incredible,” Spoelstra said of Dedmon. “We haven’t been able to do that, to be able to have that many minutes with Bam on the bench and make a run. I think that was a big time credit to Dewayne.”
The Heat has struggled in the non-Adebayo minutes this season, as it has been outscored by 2.8 points per 100 possessions when he has been off the court. But in the past seven games that Dedmon has played as Adebayo’s backup, the Heat has outscored opponents by 18.8 points per 100 possessions when Adebayo has been off the court.
Dedmon owns a plus/minus of plus-49 in eight games this season. The Heat has dominated opponents with Dedmon playing, outscoring opponents by 23.7 points per 100 possessions in his minutes.
With Dedmon making the most of his minutes as the Heat’s backup center, playing time for rookie center Precious Achiuwa and veteran forward Nemanja Bjelica has been limited recently.
“It’s always good when you can get your starters a good amount of rest,” Dedmon said. “[Bam] comes out of the game and I come in just ready to produce and let him catch his breath.”
Dedmon, who will be a free agent this upcoming offseason, has averaged 8.4 points on 26-of-35 (74.3 percent) shooting from the field and 15-of-17 (88.2 percent) shooting from the foul line and 5.9 rebounds in 13.4 minutes since joining the Heat.
Per 36 minutes, Dedmon is averaging 22.6 points, 15.8 rebounds, 1.7 steals and 1.7 blocks this season.
Dedmon has been grabbing offensive rebounds at an elite rate, as he has already collected 16 offensive boards in eight games. He has posted an offensive rebounding percentage of 15.7 percent (the percentage of available offensive rebounds a player grabs when he’s on the court).
For perspective, the league’s top offensive rebounder Clint Capela of the Atlanta Hawks owns an offensive rebounding percentage of 15.6 percent.
“He plays incredibly hard, he’s unselfish and he takes all the right shots,” Heat star Jimmy Butler said of Dedmon. “We actually probably want him to shoot the ball a little bit more, especially on pick-and-pops. But he’s a pro’s pro. He comes in, he stars in his role and he’s not handed anything. I think he has earned every trip up and down that floor and every minute that he has been given.”
While Dedmon has expanded his offensive game in recent seasons to incorporate three-point shooting, most of his opportunities with the Heat have come from around the basket. He’s 0 of 3 on threes, and 30 of his 35 shot attempts have come from inside the paint.
Dedmon, who shot 38.2 percent from three-point range on 3.4 attempts per game in 2018-19, said he’s “just trying to fit into the offense” and “not trying to force anything.”
“He’s physical, he has a presence at the rim,” Spoelstra said. “So he’s going to get fouled and he’s a really good free-throw shooter. He still can shoot the threes. I see it every day in practice. We need something different and that’s not to say that we might not explore other things as we move on. But simplification is probably the most important thing. He’s a live active multiple effort player, which is what we need.”
A month ago, Dedmon was out of the NBA waiting for his next opportunity. Now he’s making the most of it.
“At the end of the day, it’s basketball,” he said. “Whether I was playing somewhere else or sitting on the couch at the crib. I was just ready to come here and just have fun and play basketball again. That’s what I was looking forward to.”
— Spoelstra reached an impressive milestone Wednesday, earning his 600th regular-season win as a head coach.
With Wednesday’s victory, Spoelstra became just the 27th coach in NBA history to win at least 600 regular-season games and joined Gregg Popovich with San Antonio (1,308), Jerry Sloan with Utah (1,127), Red Auerbach with Boston (795), Red Holzman with New York (613) and Phil Jackson with the Los Angeles Lakers (610) as the sixth coach to reach that mark with one franchise.
