Unfortunately for the Miami Heat, Tim Hardaway Jr. is no Duncan Robinson
The Miami Heat have signed Tim Hardaway Jr., the age 34 son of the franchise legend, to fill out their rotation and this probably put a smile on the faces of lots of sentimental fans. But they will still be looking for 3-point shooting after making this move, and it's unclear how this affects the mission to bring back LeBron James for another blaze of glory.
Hardaway, who was third in Sixth Man of the Year voting in 2025-26 playing for the Denver Nuggets, will now be on his sixth team, and this will be his fourth in four seasons. That's not because he is such a hot commodity, yet rather someone teams weren't concerned with losing.
Hope trafficking might lead one to believe that things could be different in Miami, playing with someone who bends the defense like Giannis Antetokounmpo. Don't fall for it. Hardaway is regarded as being a marksman, but he is not in the same class as Duncan Robinson.
Keep in mind that Hardaway has been in the league since 2014, and he's only had one playoff run shooting above average from 3-point range. He's only shot better than the average in the regular season four times, and he played with either Luka Dončić, Cade Cunningham or Nikola Jokić in almost the last seven years.
In six games in the 2025-26 playoffs, Hardaway shot 50 percent on wide-open threes, but he was only taking 0.7 per game. His total parentage came out to 34, which is below the average, and he only had two games against the Minnesota Timberwolves making multiple threes.
The best case scenario for the signing is that Hardaway becomes a big contributor in the regular season, similarly to how the role players plus Kyle Lowry picked it up in December and January of the 2021-22 campaign when Jimmy Butler and Bam Adebayo missed time.
All he has to do is hit open jumpers and score on cuts. The most productive situations for him will be receiving the ball on a drive-and-kick and firing after an offensive rebound.
He will probably have a smaller role in the playoffs because 3-point shooting becomes a bit overrated when the physicality increases and prevents the shooter from taking a high volume. Defense and rebounding are more important playoff skills, and he leaves a lot to be desired in both areas.
Hardaway has never been a big-time player when it matters and it helps that the Heat didn't spend much on him. Hardaway is a less-effective Max Strus with worse defense. Nobody should be surprised if coach Erik Spoelstra sticks to his principles, picking Myron Gardner in a big game because he gets nasty on the ball.
Not every signing is a good one and some don't mean anything.
This article was originally published on www.si.com/nba/heat/onsi as Unfortunately for the Miami Heat, Tim Hardaway Jr. is no Duncan Robinson .
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This story was originally published July 1, 2026 at 10:00 AM.