Miami Heat summer league: Briante Weber’s defense puts him in mix

Briante Weber’s impatience is going to make him one of the Heat’s most aggravating defenders this season.

There is a nonstop urgency to attack, trying to stop a play before it ever begins, and it’s a quality he’s had since his childhood in Chesapeake, Va. He’s not going to wait for a pick-and-roll to develop or for his man to get rolling with crossovers and jukes. He wants to make them scramble.

“You know how you play pick-up games when you’re younger and you just feel like the other person shouldn’t have the ball that long? That’s where it started,” Weber said. “Around eighth grade I realized I could really stop people from getting into the paint and I ran with it from there.

“When you read body language, you can tell people are frustrated. You see how they’re retreating most of the time and asking for screens, that’s how you know you’re really frustrating them. That’s when they’re in my hands and I can do what I do.”

There is a lot to like about Weber’s game, but that defensive demeanor is the biggest reason he’s here. The Heat were so high on last year that they signed him in training camp despite him still recovering from a torn ACL and meniscus, and he’s developed nicely since then. He’s had a solid summer league and will go into training camp with a good chance of winning the back-up point guard job.

In his first nine summer league games, he averaged 9.3 points, 4.8 rebounds, 4.3 assists and 3.9 steals in 28.2 minutes per game. He struggled with his jump shot, hitting 38.8 percent from the field, but had an 18-point game against the Pelicans this week.

“He’s getting better and better at being our floor leader,” said Heat assistant Juwan Howard, who coaches the summer team. “They’re trying to get into him and make him uncomfortable with ball pressure and picking him up full-court, but Bri’s done an excellent job making decisions. At times he’s overly aggressive, but that’s his nature. I trust him.”

Like many teams, Miami tracked Weber closely during his senior season at Virginia Commonwealth before he blew out his right knee. He went from potentially going late in the first round of the draft to being an afterthought.

It was a brutal setback, and he remembers it in vivid detail. It was especially crushing because of how well the Rams were playing at the time. They were ranked No. 14 in the country early in the season and started 16-3 before Weber went down. They stumbled without him and lost in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.

Weber spent most of that time hobbled and he wasn’t able to put weight on his right leg until after the season. By draft night he was walking again, but with a slight limp.

This time last year he was watching summer league on TV while he rehabbed. Those were grueling two-a-day sessions with a three-hour workout in the morning and another hour late in the afternoon. The Heat signed him briefly in October, and he joined their D-League team in Sioux Falls, S.D., shortly after.

“That was amazing to have them still looking at me even though I hadn’t played basketball in 10 months,” said Weber, who didn’t make his season debut for the Skyforce until January. “They realized what type of person I was and how hard I would work for it.”

They were in danger of losing Weber when Memphis signed him to a 10-day contract in March, but he went back to the D-League after that and the Heat signed shortly before the playoffs. He was an emergency-only player to fill out their roster and logged just six minutes, all in the playoffs, but the idea was to secure him for 2016-17.

Now they’ll find out if all their scouting and a year-plus of player development will pay off. As the Heat rebuild, they’re looking for young talent that can keep them viable in the short term and be part of something bigger going forward. Weber looks like he fits that plan.

“He’s a Heat-type guy,” coach Erik Spoelstra said. “We have a great group of young guys that will be working their tails off this summer. He’s wired that way.”