The Miami Heat are reuniting with an old chum.
The team announced on Thursday that they have hired Shane Battier to their front office as Director of Basketball Development & Analytics. The former Duke Blue Devil’s job will include “the development of analytics in evaluating all talent, including college, free agents and current Miami players.”
Battier, now 38, played with the Heat for the last three seasons of his 13-year NBA career from 2011 to 2014, winning two championships with them. He was one of Miami’s most irreplaceable role players on those two title teams with his ability to defend elite wing scorers and hulking power forwards alike as well as with the timely three-point shooting and intangibles he always managed to bring to the table.
This continues a longstanding Heat tradition of turning former team greats into company men by hiring them to front office roles (e.g. Alonzo Mourning, Tim Hardaway, etc.). And now that Battier is officially back with the team, here’s looking forward to an extremely lit Battioke 2017.
