Miami Heat Make Unexpected Signing as 28YO Guard Returns to NBA After 2 Years To Join Bam Adebayo

Dennis Smith Jr. is back in the NBA. And his return comes with a destination he once openly hoped for. The 28-year-old guard has agreed to join the Miami Heat after spending the past two seasons away from the league. It’s a chance to revive a career that began with the ninth pick in the 2017 NBA draft. 

More than a comeback, the move reunites Smith with someone he has known since childhood: Bam Adebayo.

Chris Haynes reported that Smith has reached a deal with Miami, with his agent Daniel Hazan confirming the agreement. Haynes also noted that the Heat had been monitoring the former lottery pick “very closely all summer.

Moreover, it may not be a standard contract. 

Several reports expect it to be an Exhibit 10 training-camp contract. It gives Smith a chance to compete for an opportunity through Miami’s system rather than walk into a guaranteed regular-season role.

If things work out his way, his manifestation would come true in less than a year.

Appearing on The OGs with Udonis Haslem and Mike Miller a year ago, Smith revealed the team he would want the opportunity to play for. He brought up the Miami Heat, largely because of his relationship with Bam Adebayo.

“ Miami, obviously, because Bam is here. You know, that’s a childhood friend, Smith said. “On top of that, just being in Miami, like, I be here in the summer time. I done bumped into you a couple times in Miami. Like, I just be, I come out here, get my work in, and it’s easy for me to not be, like, overwhelmed by everything going on in Miami.”

Haslem quickly saw the connection between Smith’s personality and the Heat. “Toughness, he’ll fit right in,” the former Miami Heat captain said. Following that, Smith revealed that another Heat player said a similar statement. 

“That’s what Caleb was telling me. Caleb Martin. He kept saying, ‘Man, he’ll fit in. He’ll fit in.’…  I’m ready, man.” 

Now he gets the opportunity. 

Smith and Adebayo have known each other since their youth in North Carolina. They played together before college, giving them a relationship that predates their NBA careers by years. However, they changed paths in college, with Smith heading to NC State and Adebayo choosing Kentucky.

The Miami Heat also had a chance to draft Smith in 2017. But the Mavs selected him with a 9th overall pick. Meanwhile, the Heat picked Adebayo at No. 14. Nearly a decade later, Dennis Smith Jr. joins the same organization as his childhood friend.

Dennis Smith Jr. and his long road to the Miami Heat

His route back to the league has been anything but straightforward.

Smith’s last appeared in an NBA regular-season game for the Brooklyn Nets in March 2024. He then signed with Real Madrid in January 2025, playing only four games before leaving the club the following month. 

He returned to the US and spent much of the 2025-26 season in the G League, splitting time between the Wisconsin Herd and the Miami Heat’s affiliate, the Sioux Falls Skyforce.

With Sioux Falls, Smith showed that his playmaking ability remains intact. He averaged 8.2 ppg, 4.8 rpg, and 6.7 apg across 21 games for the Skyforce. He provided the kind of defensive pressure and ball-handling that can still make him useful to an NBA team.

The issue remains his shooting.

Smith is a career 29% 3-point shooter. It’s a limitation that has followed him throughout his NBA career and can make it difficult for teams to keep him on the floor in spacing-heavy lineups. They also added another talent.

However, the Miami Heat is giving him another opening. 

Notably, the signing doesn’t guarantee that Smith makes the regular-season roster. But it puts him back inside an NBA organization he had specifically identified as a preferred destination. 

And this time, he will have Bam Adebayo on his side.

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