Guard Jamal Mashburn Jr. spent his junior season of college basketball playing for the University of New Mexico, and he made a statement in the Mountain West Conference that season.
After all, he led the conference in points per game with 19.1 (as he finished decimal points ahead of another player who averaged 19.1) and shot 38.2 percent from 3-point range in 34 appearances.
In total, he played three seasons with New Mexico and five seasons at the collegiate level overall, with his other action coming at the University of Minnesota (as a freshman) and Temple University (as a grad transfer).
With less than a fortnight left until the 2025 NBA Draft, the Miami Heat are now being linked to Mashburn by virtue of a predraft workout.
“The Miami HEAT have worked out Jamal Mashburn Jr. of Temple,” Greg Sylvander of Five Reasons Sports wrote via Discord.
Even with his scoring title a couple years ago, Mashburn saved his best season from a scoring standpoint at the collegiate level for his fifth and final campaign. In his lone season at Temple, he set a collegiate career-high by averaging 22.0 points per game. He buried his shots from deep at an impressive 43.1 percent clip on 4.7 attempts per contest.
The 23-year-old scored plenty of his points with Temple from 3-point range, but he also earned a lot of trips to the free-throw line and has a knack for drawing fouls. Mashburn got to the charity stripe a whopping 6.8 times per game at Temple, and no Heat player averaged that many free-throw attempts this season.
Mashburn’s scoring output in college was impressive on its own, but to add to his appeal, he has great genes. His father Jamal also had a gift for putting the ball through the hoop, and he carved out a highly successful career in the NBA.
The elder Mashburn played 11 seasons in the league and averaged 19.1 points per game for his career, finishing as a one-time All-Star and one-time All-NBA pick. He even played for the Heat organization for several years. In three-plus seasons with the Heat, he averaged 15.8 points per game and was part of a Heat squad that reached the 1997 Eastern Conference Finals.
It would be quite poetic if the younger Mashburn were to land with the Heat in the 2025 NBA Draft many years after the elder Mashburn played for Miami and gave the team great production.