{"id":234902,"date":"2025-08-16T20:10:10","date_gmt":"2025-08-16T20:10:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/234902\/"},"modified":"2025-08-16T20:10:10","modified_gmt":"2025-08-16T20:10:10","slug":"southeast-notes-jaquez-jr-highsmith-wizards-roster-imbalance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/234902\/","title":{"rendered":"Southeast Notes: Jaquez Jr., Highsmith, Wizards Roster Imbalance"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Heat added Simone Fontecchio<\/a>, Kasparas Jakucionis<\/a> and Norman Powell<\/a> this offseason while shedding Kyle Anderson<\/a>, Alec Burks<\/a>, Haywood Highsmith<\/a>, Kevin Love<\/a> and Duncan Robinson<\/a> from the roster.<\/p>\n

Heat forward Jaime Jaquez Jr.<\/a> believes it\u2019s going to take awhile for the team to build chemistry, considering all the roster moves.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s starting to become the reality,\u201d Jaquez said, per Anthony Chiang of the Miami Herald<\/a>. \u201cI think your rookie year, you go through it and it\u2019s an adjustment. Now your second year, I think you really start to understand what it means to be in this business. Guys that you\u2019ve built a relationship with are no longer going to be there. It\u2019s definitely going to be an adjustment period, but we\u2019re just really excited to get new guys and have this new team and try to win games.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jaquez had a disappointing second season as his playing time diminished. He\u2019s focused on securing a rotation spot once again.<\/p>\n

\u201cJust going back and watching some film,\u201d Jaquez said. \u201cI think that\u2019s a big one. Just remembering what it was that put me on the floor, what it was that got me to this position. Just kind of leaning into my strengths, as well as working on things that I need to work on like shooting and defense. And just bringing it all together as a whole, I think is one of the biggest things for me this offseason.\u201d<\/p>\n

We have more from the Southeast Division:<\/p>\n

While they valued Highsmith, it was more essential for the franchise to get under the luxury tax, Ira Winderman of the Sun Sentinel<\/a> explains in his latest mailbag. Highsmith was dealt<\/a> to the Nets this week in what can be classified as a salary dump. Given where the Heat are in the Eastern Conference pecking order, it would be hard to justify them being a tax team and risk paying the repeater tax. The move also opens up more playing time for some of the younger players on the roster.
\nThe Wizards roster is top heavy with wings while having few traditional bigs or point guards. Josh Robbins of The Athletic<\/a> believes the roster \u00a0imbalance is not a big concern for the Wizards front office. Their aim is to bring in as many high-upside players as possible and then develop them into solid pros, while hoping one of them becomes a franchise player and a couple others can reach All-Star level production.
\nThe Hawks gave an offer sheet to a restricted free agent on Saturday. Get the details here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Heat added Simone Fontecchio, Kasparas Jakucionis and Norman Powell this offseason while shedding Kyle Anderson, Alec Burks,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":20563,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3780],"tags":[874,7,4958,2293,7278,229,1678,2870,40319,6,558,3303,682,468,3892,683],"class_list":{"0":"post-234902","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-washington-wizards","8":"tag-alec-burks","9":"tag-basketball","10":"tag-duncan-robinson","11":"tag-haywood-highsmith","12":"tag-jaime-jaquez","13":"tag-kasparas-jakucionis","14":"tag-kevin-love","15":"tag-kyle-anderson","16":"tag-kyle-anderson-delaware","17":"tag-nba","18":"tag-norman-powell","19":"tag-simone-fontecchio","20":"tag-washington","21":"tag-washington-wizards","22":"tag-washingtonwizards","23":"tag-wizards"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115040264353766978","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234902","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=234902"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234902\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20563"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=234902"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=234902"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=234902"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}