Tim Hardaway Jr. Follows His Father to Miami and Delivers a Line That Sums Up the Journey
Tim Hardaway Jr. finally got the moment he has been waiting for his whole life. The Miami Heat introduced him Thursday as their newest addition after signing him alongside the blockbuster Giannis Antetokounmpo trade.
Hardaway will wear No. 10 in Miami. That is the same number his father, Tim Hardaway Sr., wore for the Heat in the late 1990s and early 2000s during the run that made him one of the greatest point guards in franchise history. This is a full-circle moment that the Hardaway family has been thinking about for decades.
“I’ve been praying for this day,” Hardaway said in his introductory press conference, via Tim Reynolds of the Associated Press. “I’ve always wanted this day to come, ever since I was a kid.”
That quote is the story. Hardaway grew up around the Heat organization when his dad was there. He watched Pat Riley coach. He watched Alonzo Mourning battle. He saw what a Miami jersey meant, and the fact that his own father wore the same jersey number is not a coincidence he takes lightly.
On the court, Hardaway is a career 36.5 percent three-point shooter with a 13.7 point per game average across 12 NBA seasons. He is not the star of this Heat team. That is now Giannis. What Hardaway does is space the floor, hit the shots he is supposed to hit, and give Erik Spoelstra another weapon to run off screens.
For a Miami team built around Giannis, Bam Adebayo, and Duncan Robinson, Hardaway is the ideal complementary piece. He can start or come off the bench. He does not need the ball. He plays hard defensively even if he is not a plus defender. He fits.
The path here has been longer than Hardaway probably expected. He came up with the New York Knicks in 2013. He had two long stints with the Atlanta Hawks. He spent six-plus years with the Dallas Mavericks. He had a stop in Detroit. He was in Denver last season. Now, at 34, he lands in the city where he watched his dad become a star.
Interestingly, Hardaway is now on a second NBA team that his father also played for. Hardaway Sr. was in Dallas for a stretch. That means the family has actually put together some franchise overlap over the years without planning it that way.
What Miami is really banking on is that Hardaway can shoot 38 percent or better from three next season. If he does, this signing pays for itself twice over. Giannis is going to draw double teams every night. Adebayo is going to command help in the paint. Someone has to knock down the open looks that come off those actions, and Hardaway has done that his entire career.
The Heat did not have to spend big to bring him in. They spent smart. And they gave the Hardaway family a story that spans two generations of Miami basketball. Whatever Junior does on the court next season, this signing already had a moment worth remembering.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
