Reigning Sixth Man of the Year Tyler Herro has signed a 4-year, $130 million contract extension with the Miami Heat.
The deal has $120 million in guaranteed salary and another $10 million in incentives, according to reports.
Herro averaged 20.7 points per game for the Eastern Conference’s No. 1 seed last season.
Jimmy Butler, Bam Adebayo, Kyle Lowry and now Herro all have multiple seasons on their deals with the Heat, who won 53 games last season, were the No. 1 seed for the Eastern Conference playoffs and went to Game 7 of the East finals before falling to Boston.
Herro was the subject of trade rumours involving Kevin Durant and Donovan Mitchell in the postseason, while Herro made it clear that he no longer wants to come off of the bench.
“I would like to start,” he said in his exit interview. “It’s my fourth year (next season), so I think I’ve earned it. We’ll see what happens.”
Heat president Pat Riley made it clear that Herro would need to earn a starting job by committing defensively.
“The next step for him — and I think we’re seeing this in the league — if you want to win a championship and you wanna be a starter, you really have to become a two-way player today,” Riley said in a media conference after the season.
“You have to improve in certain areas of your game. … I saw improvement in his defence this year. He’s got great feet, he’s got quick feet. He just needs to get stronger, again. Add another 10 pounds of muscle mass. He just needs to get stronger from a leverage standpoint.”
“Tyler was ignitable for this team,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said when the Sixth Man of the Year award was announced. “He was that way all season.”
