Tim Hardaway Jr. Calls Heat Home After Giannis Trade Made His Decision Easy

Tim Hardaway Jr. didn’t need much time to think about it. When the Miami Heat pulled off the Giannis Antetokounmpo trade, the veteran guard knew exactly where he wanted to be.

Hardaway signed with Miami in free agency shortly after the blockbuster deal for Antetokounmpo went through on July 6. At his introductory press conference Wednesday, he admitted he was caught off guard at first. But in a good way.

“I definitely was surprised, in a great way, in a cool way,” Hardaway said. “It was great to hear that a superstar was coming to Miami. For me, growing up, that’s all this organization has ever done was bring in guys that can help put a banner up there, and they succeeded.”

Hardaway grew up in Miami. His dad, Tim Hardaway Sr., played for the Heat in the late 1990s. So when his phone rang with the offer, there wasn’t much to weigh.

“It’s home, man,” he said. “When the call came, I was just excited, as anybody would be, especially in the city that they would have grown up in and dreamed about playing for, for the team that they grew up inspired by. So for me, it was a no-brainer.”

What Hardaway brings to the new-look Heat

The Heat didn’t just land Antetokounmpo. They also needed shooting around him and Bam Adebayo. Hardaway fills that role. Last season with the Denver Nuggets, he averaged 13.5 points and knocked down 224 threes, shooting 40.7 percent from deep. That was the second-most three-pointers in a single season in Nuggets history.

Hardaway sees his job in simple terms. “My job is to make their job easy,” he said. He talked about running dribble handoffs with Adebayo, the way Adebayo sets screens and finds open shooters. If the defense collapses, drop it off to Giannis or Bam and let them go to work.

“It’s gonna take time, it’s gonna be a lot of film work, a lot of things to see where we can be great at,” Hardaway added. “But it’s gonna be a lot of fun.”

Miami has a history of making big swings — trading for Alonzo Mourning in 1995, Shaquille O’Neal in 2004, Jimmy Butler in 2019. Antetokounmpo is the latest whale. The Heat finished 10th in the East last season at 43-39 and missed the playoffs for the first time since 2019 after a play-in loss to Charlotte. That lit a fire under the front office to go get a star.

Now Hardaway steps into a lineup that could look very different come October. He and Antetokounmpo and Adebayo will need to figure out the two-man games, the spacing, the timing. Hardaway knows it’s a work in progress. But for a guy who grew up watching the Heat, it’s the kind of problem he’s happy to have.