With Dru Smith suffering season-ending torn Achilles, Heat to move Keshad Johnson to standard deal

Miami Heat guard Dru Smith’s season is over.

For the second straight year, an injury has cut Smith’s season short. After suffering a season-ending knee injury in November 2023 last season, guard Dru Smith learned Tuesday that he has sustained a season-ending torn Achilles’ tendon, a league source confirmed.

Smith suffered the non-contact Achilles injury during the Heat’s 110-95 win over the Brooklyn Nets on Monday night at Kaseya Center. While the victory snapped a three-game skid and moved the Heat (14-13) back over .500 for the season, players and coaches weren’t in a celebratory mood following the game because of Smith’s latest setback.

“Man, all we can do is pray for him,” Heat center Bam Adebayo said, with the team now idle until Thursday’s matchup against the Magic in Orlando. “But it’s definitely a gut punch because he sits next to me on the plane and we have conversations a lot. We talk about basketball and really reflect on just how grateful we are to have the life that we live. So to have a guy who’s that pure have an injury, we pray for him and we hope for the best for him.”

Heat ends three-game skid with win over Nets, but loses Dru Smith. Takeaways and details

The timing of the injury adds another layer to this unfortunate situation. Smith was on track to be promoted from a two-way contract to a standard contract in the coming days.

After the Dec. 15 trade of Thomas Bryant left the Heat with 13 players on standard deals, NBA rules require the Heat to sign a 14th player to a standard contract by Sunday. The thinking has been that Smith would be moved to a standard contract to fill that spot, but his injury forced the Heat to look elsewhere when fulfilling that requirement.

In the wake of Smith’s season-ending Achilles tear, the Heat instead committed to convert forward Keshad Johnson’s two-way contract to a standard deal to fill that 14th roster spot by Sunday’s deadline.

According to league sources, Johnson will sign a two-year standard contract with the Heat that will include a fully guaranteed minimum salary for the rest of this season and a team option in the second season. The expectation is that Johnson’s new contract will become official on Thursday just before the Heat takes on the Magic in Orlando.

As for Smith, he went down in the second quarter of Monday’s win. While dribbling the ball on the perimeter, Smith planted his left foot and his left leg buckled without any contact from his defender.

Smith immediately fell to the court and lost the ball out of bounds. He then sat on the court for a few seconds after the play, seemingly in disbelief, before being helped up by teammates and hobbling back to the locker room.

“The air went out of the building seeing him fall like that,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said.

After exiting with 8:18 left in the second quarter, the Heat ruled Smith out for the rest of Monday’s game because of a lower left leg injury before Tuesday’s MRI revealed his season-ending Achilles.

“We were all messed up for a while,” Spoelstra said of regrouping after Smith went down midway through Monday’s contest. “You don’t want to see anybody get hurt, but we all have such an incredible deep respect for his journey, what he has had to overcome. I’ve been in the building all those times last year when nobody else was here and he was doing all the extensive treatment and rehab around the clock. He just has incredible fortitude. So you end up just absolutely rooting for guys like Dru.”

The injury isn’t just unfortunate for Smith, it’s also a blow to the Heat.

Smith, who turns 27 on Dec. 30, had played double-digit minutes in eight straight games before leaving Monday’s contest. He turned into a big part of the Heat’s bench rotation after playing in just five of the team’s first 18 games this season, averaging 9.3 points, 2.8 rebounds, 2.1 assists and 2.3 steals per game while shooting 53.2 percent from the field and 56 percent on threes in eight games this month prior to Monday’s injury.

Smith also had played the entire fourth quarter in five of the last seven games before Monday’s contest.

“He’s kind of the glue that fits, and he can make any unit work — the second unit, the starters,” Spoelstra said of Smith earlier this month. “So that’s that thing I say, make me watch, make me play you and then make me for sure not even think about putting somebody else in there.”

With Smith out for the rest of the season, Johnson will have an opportunity to prove himself as part of the Heat’s standard roster.

Johnson, who went undrafted out of Arizona this year and impressed with the Heat’s summer league team this past offseason, has thrived with the Heat’s G League affiliate this season. He has averaged 21.2 points, 8.2 rebounds, 1.7 assists and 1.5 steals per game while shooting 54.9 percent from the field and 39.6 percent from three-point range in 13 games for the Sioux Falls Skyforce this season.

Johnson, 23, has appeared in just three games with the Heat this season.

With the Heat currently standing about $3.7 million away from the ultra-punitive second apron that it does not intend to cross, it has enough room to add Johnson on a standard deal for the rest of the season while staying below that threshold.

With Johnson’s promotion, one of the Heat’s three two-way contract slots will be open. The Heat’s plan is to sign guard Isaiah Stevens to a two-way deal this week to fill that spot.

Stevens, who went undrafted this year, was a summer league standout for the Heat this past offseason and has played well for the Heat’s G League affiliate. He leads the G League with 10.8 assists per game this season.

For now, the Heat will keep Smith on his two-way deal despite him not being able to play for the rest of the season.

But Smith, who has already been waived by the Heat four different times after initially signing with the organization as an undrafted prospect in 2021, was set to be moved to a standard contract this week before his injury.

Now, Smith will be left rehabbing from another serious injury after spending most of 2024 rehabbing from ACL reconstruction surgery that he underwent in December 2023.

“Really tough,” Heat guard Tyler Herro said of Smith’s injury. “Not just for obviously Dru, but for our whole organization. We really commend Dru for the work he’s put in, not just this season. I feel like it’s been the last week and a half, two weeks, he’s really been playing well. But all the work he has put in to come back from the knee injury last year and where he was at before [Monday], it’s just really unfortunate to see him go down. He’s one of my favorite teammates, one of my favorite players to play with. It’s really heartbreaking.”