The Miami Heat have locked up guard Tyler Herro on a new four-year, $130 million contract extension ahead of the 2022-23 regular season.
Herro’s new deal rewards him for an impressive 2021-22 campaign where he won the NBA’s Sixth Man of the Year award. The University of Kentucky product averaged 20.7 points, 5.0 rebounds and 4.0 assists per game during the 2021-22 regular season while shooting 44.7 percent from the field and 39.9 percent from beyond the arc.
Herro’s play helped lift the Heat to the No. 1 seed in the Eastern Conference, but one NBA executive doesn’t believe he is better than another guard who shares a similar skill set to him.
According to The Athletic’s Anthony Slater, the executive believes that Golden State Warriors guard Jordan Poole is a better player than Herro, citing Poole’s playmaking ability as one of the reasons why.
“Better creator, stronger going to the rim, should hold up more defensively if he just tries because he plays a little bit bigger,” one league executive said this week.
Poole, who was an integral piece in the Warriors’ run to win the NBA Finals last season, had by far the best season of his career in the 2021-22 campaign.
Poole averaged 18.5 points, 3.4 rebounds and 4.0 assists per game while shooting 44.8 percent from the field and 36.4 percent from beyond the arc.
Even though Herro and Poole averaged the same number of assists per game, the executive still likes Poole’s makeup as a playmaker better. It should be noted that Poole also plays with Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson, two star guards, which limited his opportunities on the offensive end at times.
For example, Poole averaged just 13.9 field goal attempts per game last season, while Herro took 17.0 shots per game for the Heat. Herro took advantage of his expanded offensive role, averaging the most points per game for his career last season.
There are a lot of similarities between Poole and Herro, but Herro has been a better overall player in his first three seasons in the NBA.
Poole struggled to find his footing in Golden State’s rotation until the 2021-22 season. In his first two NBA seasons, Poole appeared in 108 games for the team, making 21 starts and playing 20.9 minutes per game. He averaged 10.3 points, 1.9 rebounds and 2.2 assists per game over those two seasons.
For comparison, Herro averaged 14.3 points, 4.5 rebounds and 2.8 assists in 28.8 minutes per game in his first two NBA seasons.
Now, the two players are both rising stars in the NBA, and it’s possible they will be compared more and more as their NBA careers continue.
