Miami Heat: Can Danny Granger Keep Contributing?
By David Ramil
It’s happened on more than one occasion as the Miami Heat have fought through this injury-depleted season and needing just one big play to help turn momentum in their favor. After seemingly giving up basket after basket, they’d finally get a defensive stop, race downcourt and kick it to a wide-open Danny Granger for a corner three-pointer. Was this the break the team would finally get?
Granger would rise up, creaking knees extending upward, release the shot and…watch as the ball fell short of the rim by several inches.
Clearly, the opportunity to shoot airballs consistently (as Granger did for most of the season) isn’t the reason why Miami signed the veteran to short-term contract this past summer. The former All-Star had played sparingly over the last two years — just 46 regular season games since 2012 — but there was hope that his shooting and experience would boost the Heat to a fifth-straight NBA Finals appearance.
Instead, Granger would struggle for playing time and his minutes on the floor would often be punctuated by groans from Heat fans throughout South Florida.
More from Hoops Habit
- The 5 most dominant NBA players who never won a championship
- 7 Players the Miami Heat might replace Herro with by the trade deadline
- Meet Cooper Flagg: The best American prospect since LeBron James
- Are the Miami Heat laying the groundwork for their next super team?
- Sophomore Jump: 5 second-year NBA players bound to breakout
It was just five days ago that articles like this one from Bleacher Report broke down the end of Granger’s career. Yet, is this the same player that has shot 75 percent over Miami’s last two games, adding 27 points and 10 rebounds in that span?
It appears Miami might finally be getting the contributions they expected when they added Granger to the roster during the offseason. And he might make all the difference in the team’s continued quest to lock down a playoff berth and be a legitimate threat in the Eastern Conference.
Injuries have forced Heat head coach Erik Spoelstra to change his rotations continuously, yet Granger had rarely been counted on to help in any way. With Chris Bosh missing several games (due to a calf injury) and with Josh McRoberts‘ season-ending knee surgery, there was a hole in Miami’s frontcourt that needed to be filled.
It seems as though Granger is finally filling it, playing an average of 24 minutes and allowing Dwyane Wade and Luol Deng to cut to the hoop for an easy basket by spreading the floor; Granger’s shooting 5-of-10 from three-point range over the last three games.
According to Spoelstra, the forward’s progress was part of the plan and the Heat are just now reaping the rewards, as he told the Sun-Sentinel’s Ira Winderman:
"“The plan was build up his body. That’s what we’re trying to do, getting healthy, feeling better, in better condition than what he’s felt in two years. That’s been the number-one objective. And then, from there, we’ll find a role for him… To do that and try to get him ready for games was little bit contradictory early on.”"
And it’s worked, with Granger telling the Sentinel’s Shandel Richardson, “It felt just like old times,” before adding:
"“I always put myself in the mindset of all those years when I played in Indiana, how many big shots I made and how many fourth quarters I hit shots in. That’s what it kind of felt like. When I play with that mindset, I can be highly effective.”"
“Effective” is a far cry from the level Granger played at before leg injuries sidetracked a promising career with the Indiana Pacers, one that ended abruptly when he was traded to the cellar-dwelling Philadelphia 76ers, then waived, before catching on with the Los Angeles Clippers for an unexpectedly short playoff run. His play in Los Angeles was frustrating and inconsistent, both for him and the team’s fans, and it seemed that was the case early on in Miami, too.
But the Heat has been rewarded for their patience and once Bosh returns – as he’s expected to do on Monday – having Granger chip in off the bench will only help. Dwyane Wade, no stranger himself to injury and missed games, expressed that to the Sentinel:
"“Danny is getting more comfortable in himself. I think the guys are getting more comfortable with him being on the floor. Obviously he can shoot the ball. He made a big three for us (Thursday, in a win over Cleveland) and then at the end on the switch, we went to him in the post. He made a big play to kind of push the game. Hopefully, no setbacks and he continues to get comfortable with this team because he can help us big-time.”"
The expectations were that Granger would somehow return to his form from 2009, when he made the All-Star team while averaging 25.8 points per game. That’s never going to be case. But contributing to the team effectively while helping Bosh, Wade and Deng continue to do what they do best will still lead to winning.
And for Danny Granger and the Heat, that’s all that matters.