Christian Laettner

This is how we all remember the guy, right?

That's Christian Laettner, hitting the shot to beat Kentucky in the 1992 Eastern Regional Final (I like this camera angle. On TV, you always see the shot from the back). He's certainly an interesting name to add to the Heat's roster. Forever part of college basketball folklore and a former lottery pick, everyone has heard of the guy. But what kind of player are the Heat getting today? Let's take a closer look.

- He turned 35 last month.
- He played in only 48 games last year.
- He hasn't been in a playoff series the last four seasons.
- He hasn't played in the playoffs and won a series since he was 27.
- In the time he was on the floor last season, his team (the Wizards) outscored their opponents 13 times. They were outscored 34 times. This percentage is less than the team's overall winning percentage.
- For every 48 minutes Laettner was on the court last season, his team was outscored by 8.2 points. None of his teammates who played as many or more minutes had a worse percentage.
- His Efficiency Rating (Efficiency is a new stat the NBA developed in 2002. It is calculated using the following formula: ((pts + reb + stls + asts + blk) - ((fga - fgm) + (fta - ftm) + to))/g) was his lowest since he was 29, when he played in only 16 games.

Now some good news. Laettner ranked 4th out of 115 power forwards (as listed by ESPN))in assist/turnover ratio. He was pretty average in everything else.

Laettner played 20.5 minutes a game last year. On a team with only Udonis Haslem and Malik Allen at the power forward position, it's safe to say that he could get near that total again. But what we have here is a player on the tail-end of his career, who didn't even play well enough to help the Wizards. He might look good in a half-court set, either feeding the ball in to Shaq or kicking it outside for a three, but you have to be concerned about his overall effectiveness on the floor. We'll see.