Miami Heat: Tyler Herro’s stock rises in the bubble while Kendrick Nunn’s falls

The Miami Heat’s young shooting guards have been opposites during the restart. Tyler Herro has risen to the occasion while Kendrick Nunn has struggled.

The revived NBA season hasn’t been the smoothest of sailing for the Miami Heat. The team has posted a 3-3 record and many key players have missed games. The fourth-seeded Heat is only  1.5 games back from slipping to the sixth seed.

One reason for the terrain’s instability has been the disparity between the play of Miami’s rookie guards, Tyler Herro and Kendrick Nunn. The former has stepped up his play in the Disney World bubble, while the latter youngster’s play has regressed.

Herro, the 13th overall pick in last year’s draft, has upped his averages from the pre-hiatus regular season, averaging 15.3 points, 5.0 rebounds and 4.2 assists on 52.2 percent field goal shooting across Miami’s first six seeding games.

Although his 3-point shooting was well above average before the restart, Herro’s shooting from deep has escaped him. His 35.5 percent from deep is down by over 3 percent from his pre-bubble percentage. Still, the 20-year-old rookie has been a bright spot for a Miami team whose seeding is not yet finalized.

Herro put up his best performance in the bubble – and one of his best of the season – against the Phoenix Suns and his favorite player, Devin Booker. Herro recorded 25 points, 10 assists and eight rebounds on 10-of-16 shooting, his first double-double, career-high in assists and his highest field goal percentage (62.5 percent) in games where he scored 10 field goals.