Andre Dawkins makes the Heat!

[Furniture]

To me it's all about maturity. Dawkins is very immature and until now it's been very easy for him ( basketball wise). I mean he got into one of the best BB programs in the country. Maybe he didn't have to work very hard to do it. His talent got him to Duke. One day he will mature, wake up, whatever. It could still happen.

[wk2109]

To me it's all about maturity. Dawkins is very immature and until now it's been very easy for him ( basketball wise). I mean he got into one of the best BB programs in the country. Maybe he didn't have to work very hard to do it. His talent got him to Duke. One day he will mature, wake up, whatever. It could still happen.

What is any of this based on?

[GGLC]

To me it's all about maturity. Dawkins is very immature and until now it's been very easy for him ( basketball wise). I mean he got into one of the best BB programs in the country. Maybe he didn't have to work very hard to do it. His talent got him to Duke. One day he will mature, wake up, whatever. It could still happen.

I disagree pretty strongly with the sentiments expressed here. I think it shows a heck of a lot of maturity to be able to come back to basketball at all and accept the role he had last season after what he's been through in his college career.

[Furniture]

I'll try and qualify my comments. Maybe I should have said "on court maturity' or missing ingredient or something but anyway, I absolutely do beleive that Dawkins has the talent to be like a Ray Allen in the NBA. I hope he can somehow make it. I know I'll always be supporting and looking out for him.

[SupaDave]

Wouldn't height, weight and strength be tangibles? You can measure those. Curry, IMO, has a big edge on Dawkins in true intangibles, basketball IQ, work ethic, competiveness. Phil Henderson, Kevin Strickland, Thomas Hill and Jeff Capel were athletic players in the 6-4, 6-5 range. All were effective 3-point shooters at Duke and all were substantially better than Dawkins in college. And not one ever played a second in the NBA. Tommy Amaker, Chris Carrawell, Jon Scheyer. All NBA no-shows.

For all of his alleged height, weight and strength advantages, Dawkins was never more than a role player at Duke, usually off the bench. On a team crying out for veteran leadership and production, Duke's fifth-year senior never could leverage those advantages into a starting role.

If Andre Dawkins was an NBA prospect, don't you think he should have played ahead of Tyler Thornton?

The narrative from Duke on Dawkins coming into the season was that his off-season workouts had been concentrated on improving his liabilities. He was going to get to the rim off the bounce, get tough rebounds in traffic, engage defensively.

None of that happened.

I don't mean to minimize the personal tragedy he endured. But the NBA is a business and, Isaiah Austin notwithstanding, there's not a lot of sentiment in the NBA. By NBA standards, he's a small wing guard with average athleticism. Dawkins has work to do get the next level, a lot of work to do. I hope he makes it. But it is not going to be easy.

After Lance and Shavlik (and even Nolan, J-Dub, and Jon) you would think that folks would give him a shot...

I'm not sure I see the connection between Dawkins and the 2011 ACC Player of the Year. Why would the fact that a consensus first-team All-American couldn't last more than two years in the NBA (hopefully that will change) be a good sign for a player who never averaged even nine ppg in college?

Lance Thomas might be a useful analog. Thomas was willing to woodshed in the NBDL, work on his game, persevere and improve. And he had a shot in the league but couldn't leverage that into a long-term career. Note that Thomas ended his college career starting on an NCAA title team. Unlike Dawkins.

Can Dawkins show the same work ethic and ability to improve? I hope this doesn't come across as harsh, but right now he's an undersized two who can't defend, pass, dribble or rebound at anything approaching an NBA level. Being an occasionally transcendent 3-point shooter is nice and all but that couldn't keep Seth Curry in the NBA last season and Curry was a much better college player than was Dawkins.

So, he's got a lot of work to do. A lot.

Sure he does Jim but at the same time he's got a few intangibles that Curry didn't have in his favor such as height, weight, and strength. For Dre it's all about landing with the right team. The Lakers would have given him the ball every possession last season. If he works for it, and he just may then he could tap levels of his game we haven't seen bc sometimes the NBA just does that for some players.

The NBA doesn't care about accolades when they are staffing their teams for the future.and for the record, Dre is a national champion and in many people's eyes around here an MVP. He's hasn't shown JJ type resilience yet but then again he came back to high level college basketball after a year off even though there were few chances to be featured - and he got his for the most part.

In the NBA - you got 24 seconds. Not a whole lot of defensive sets go down in that time. With Dre's quick release and a good showing this summer and I think we see Dre on a squad. (for the record, I was right about Lance too when no one gave him a shot). In the NBA, you gotta be ready, Dre is like Carmelo Anthony coming off the bench (now I'm a tad bit carried away here but you get it)...

Hopefully the summer league experience will give him some exposure that will attract some solid international opportunities if an NBA/NBDL opportunity doesn't pan out.

Re Henderson's earlier post--obviously, I don't know the quality of Andre's representation. But Andre is smart, and he has navigated through some tough times. I would be very surprised if he could be sold a bill of goods by a dishonest or incompetent agent. I'm sure he wants to play in the NBA, but I am also pretty confident that if that isn't going to happen, he will be realistic enough to find another opportunity.

OK, first of all, I'm simply suggesting that Andre's shooting is good enough to get him on an NBA roster (something Salim Stoudamire achieved for three seasons). So I do think his shooting percentages relative to good NBA shooters are relevant.

Second, your list above is misleading. For example, of the eight guys on your list who had better eFG% than Andre's .614, four of them didn't take a thee-pointer all season and two others took less than 25 threes in the season -- those six players are clearly irrelevant to this discussion. The remaining two guys who had a higher eFG% than Andre played for (very) low majors (Incarnate Word and Robert Morris). Considering the percentage of Andre's shots that came beyond the three-point line, and the fact that he played against high-major competition, his college eFG% and ts% are very impressive.

Finally, there are obviously other factors in play here. Salim Stoudamire may have had trouble getting his shot off in the NBA because he was 6'1" in high heels on a tall day. Seth Curry is 6'1" w/o shoes. He also might have some trouble getting his shot off against NBA SGs. Andre Dawkins is 6'3.5" w/o shoes. Which I understand isn't as tall as someone like Kyle Korver (6'6.25 w/o shoes), but especially considering how much elevation Andre gets on his shot, Andre should be tall enough to get his shot off (unlike SS and SC). Andre also has a decent NBA-caliber vertical and other athletic attributes, and a good-for-his-height 6'8.5 wingspan (by comparison, Seth Curry's wingspan is only 6'4), unlike so many college shooting specialists.

If you're still not seeing it, that's fine. Obviously none of the NBA GMs saw it, either, but I still think Andre will make it to the NBA someday.

So, I agree with those who say the odds are against Dawkins making the league because, hey, it's a tough league, but do you really think inability to hit threes reliably was what was getting him taken out of the game? Statistically, by practically any metric (e.g. PER) he was one of our better offensive players all of last year on a per-minute basis. The "shot disappearing" stuff is pretty much classic "fooled by randomness" and I doubt competent NBA GMs will be swayed by that.

I hate to say I told you so but...

Dawkins signs with Heat. More to come...

[MCFinARL]

I hate to say I told you so but...

Dawkins signs with Heat. More to come...

Is this something more than the training camp contract he signed a few weeks ago?

[Duvall]

I hate to say I told you so but...

Dawkins signs with Heat. More to come...

Release.

It's a training camp deal. Good experience, though.

[MCFinARL]

Release.

It's a training camp deal. Good experience, though.

Interesting--I thought I had already seen this reported, but the release is new.

And I agree--it is a good experience, and a chance, even if it is far from a guarantee that Andre will ever see an NBA court during a regular season game.

[SupaDave]

Very interesting timing of the announcement. Sheesh...

Let's see if he can make the final 15.

[dukelifer]

Andre Dawkins attempted 189 field goals last season. 152 were three pointers. He went to the foul line 37 times in 33 games. This does not suggest a player who drove to the rim very often.

Doesn't your suggestion that Thornton played ahead of Dawkins because the former better understood the system and played with more toughness and focus rather support my concerns about Dawkins?

Dawkins played 453 minutes last season. That's the smallest total of his career. He played 778 in 2011, when competition on the wing included Nolan Smith, Kyle Singler, Seth Curry and Kyrie Irving, for a portion of the season. Tyler Thornton played 337 minutes that season. Three years later, Thornton had more than doubled his PT, while Dawkins had seen a precipitous drop.

That lack of improvement doesn't bode well for a long and prosperous NBA career. Again, IMO, if Dawkins is going to make the NBA he's going to have to work his derriere off and show improvement in darn near every area of his game.

Yes- Andre will need to up his game in a very big way. While never a star in college- he had some very big moments and even great 25pt+ games. I think his work ethic kept him from fully realizing his potential as a player. It is very rare for a person to develop those work skills out of nowhere- but not impossible. We shall see. The kid had a beautiful stroke and that is a good place to start building.

[miramar]

The Heat have four rookies left for one roster spot and Andre just might be the guy.

From the Sun-Sentinel in Fort Lauderdale:


The final three cuts likely will come from a group of four rookies: forwards Khem Birch and Shawn Jones, and guards Andre Dawkins and Tyler Johnson.

Dawkins seemingly helped his chances with a pair of 3-pointers in Saturday's 122-119 overtime loss to the Cleveland Cavaliers in Rio de Janeiro.

"He had a terrific summer for us and spent the whole summer in our facility with summer league, and kept on better and better," coach Erik Spoelstra said following Monday's practice at AmericanAirlines Arena of the undrafted guard out of Duke. "It's probably the best shape he's been in in a long time. He's a smart kid. He picks up things on how to play off of people and stay within his own lane. And he has a great shooting stroke."

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/sports/m...314-story.html

[Kedsy]

The Heat have four rookies left for one roster spot and Andre just might be the guy.

From the Sun-Sentinel in Fort Lauderdale:


The final three cuts likely will come from a group of four rookies: forwards Khem Birch and Shawn Jones, and guards Andre Dawkins and Tyler Johnson.

Dawkins seemingly helped his chances with a pair of 3-pointers in Saturday's 122-119 overtime loss to the Cleveland Cavaliers in Rio de Janeiro.

"He had a terrific summer for us and spent the whole summer in our facility with summer league, and kept on better and better," coach Erik Spoelstra said following Monday's practice at AmericanAirlines Arena of the undrafted guard out of Duke. "It's probably the best shape he's been in in a long time. He's a smart kid. He picks up things on how to play off of people and stay within his own lane. And he has a great shooting stroke."

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/sports/m...314-story.html

Keeping my fingers crossed.

[nmduke2001]

The beat writer for the Sentinel predicts Andre makes the team...

"Heat still need to cut 3. Early prediction: Shawn Jones, Khem Birch and Tyler Johnson (with Andre Dawkins kept because of 3-point shooting).

— Ira Winderman (@IraHeatBeat) October 13, 2014"

[Duvall]

The Heat have four rookies left for one roster spot and Andre just might be the guy.

If Dawkins makes an NBA roster, even briefly, how close are we to changing the narrative around the 2010 Duke team from "how did Mike Krzyzewski win a championship with that team" to "how did that team lose five games"?

[CDu]

If Dawkins makes an NBA roster, even briefly, how close are we to changing the narrative around the 2010 Duke team from "how did Mike Krzyzewski win a championship with that team" to "how did that team lose five games"?

It certainly is an interesting question. Of course, it's important to note that (if Dawkins does make the team) 3 of the 7 NBAers on that team were freshmen, and 2 of those 3 were REALLY not ready yet. And of the 4 non-freshman NBAers, 2 were only fringe NBA guys (Smith and Thomas) and a third (Miles Plumlee) was a very late bloomer.

If we were talking about the upperclassmen versions of Kelly, the Plumlees, and Dawkins to go along with upperclassmen versions of Singler/Scheyer/Smith/Thomas/Zoubek, then I'd agree. That group should absolutely not have lost 5 games. But so many of those guys were very different players as they progressed than they were as freshmen/sophomores.

[HaveFunExpectToWin]

If Dawkins makes an NBA roster, even briefly, how close are we to changing the narrative around the 2010 Duke team from "how did Mike Krzyzewski win a championship with that team" to "how did that team lose five games"?

82-50, never forget.

[diablesseblu]

82-50, never forget.

Amen! One of my most favorites games in 60+ years of being a Duke fan.

[Bob Green]

Keeping my fingers crossed.

As am I! Andre Dawkins on an NBA roster would be sweet.

[UrinalCake]

If Dawkins makes an NBA roster, even briefly, how close are we to changing the narrative around the 2010 Duke team from "how did Mike Krzyzewski win a championship with that team" to "how did that team lose five games"?

Nah, the narrative will change to "why did Coach K keep a future NBA player glued to the bench for four years?

[nmduke2001]

Dre with 16 tonight on only 8 shots.
http://scores.espn.go.com/nba/boxscore?gameId=400583994