IT WAS AUG. 11, 2021, and inside the Cox Pavilion in Las Vegas, what appeared to be an ordinary NBA summer league game between the Miami Heat and Memphis Grizzlies was anything but.
This was sudden death, after the NBA had seven years prior changed the rules for summer league games that go into double overtime.
Next basket wins.
Tied at 94, Heat big man Omar Yurtseven won the opening jump, tipping the ball to Max Strus. The second-year guard, who had played a total of 513 NBA minutes in his first two seasons, calmly took seven dribbles — from the opposite 3-point line to the Heat’s — and launched.
Swish.
His teammates, those with dreams and aspirations just like his, stormed off the bench to celebrate as Strus slapped his chest and let out a celebratory yell.
It was a highlight in the midst of a four-game stretch in which Strus averaged 20.8 points and shot 40% from beyond the arc.
When Strus looks back now on his past year, he does so knowing that one of the most important steps in his basketball journey came with a gamble in Las Vegas.
After struggling to find a consistent niche in his first full season with the Heat during the 2020-21 season, Strus made the decision to go back to summer league even though he had a deal lined up for the next season.
“Summer league was everything for me last season,” Strus says. “It provided all the confidence in the world for me to do what I did last season, honestly.”
And it was exactly what the Heat were looking for: a showcase for the young prospect to shine as the leading man for the team.
“I didn’t really play that much when I was on a two-way,” Strus says. “They were like, ‘All right, we think you can take a next step in your career,’ and they believed in me.”
It’s another summer league success story: Strus points out similar rises from Heat teammate Duncan Robinson and Boston Celtics guard Derrick White. And Strus said he knows he’s just the most recent example of a player whose productive few weeks in the desert led to a promising NBA career.
“I think, yes, I would be the guy that people can look at and say, ‘He was in his third year in the NBA, he probably shouldn’t have played summer league, but he went and did it,'” Strus says. “‘And it was the best thing for him. And now look where he is.'”
AFTER GOING UNDRAFTED in 2019, the Celtics signed Strus for training camp but ultimately cut him, in part, to keep 7-foot-6 center Tacko Fall. Later that year, after being signed by his hometown Chicago Bulls, Strus tore…
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