Josh Richardson didn’t know.

On an off day early in a season interspersed with assignments to the NBA’s Developmental League, Josh Richardson walked onto Miami’s practice court ready to get some shots up. He gets to the end of his workout, the three-point routine, and hits 64 out of 100. That about does it, he thinks, and he begins to leave the gym.

Then Erik Spoelstra walks in.

“J-Rich, how many did you make,” Spoelstra asks.

“This is before I knew I was supposed to make 70,” Richardson says. “I was just shooting 100 and leaving. He was like, ‘Nah, nah, you’re shooting again. You’ve got to make 70’.”

When Richardson began his four-year career at the University of Tennessee, he was effectively a non-shooter. Playing the two and three spot, he attempted just 90 threes over his first two seasons – and he made just 18. Over his junior and senior seasons he began tweaking his jumper, eventually taking more than three deep shots a game while shooting in the mid-30’s, but the jumper was still a question mark when he declared for the NBA Draft last year. Had he been a proven marksman, chances are he wouldn’t have be available for Miami to draft at No. 40.

So when you hear that Richardson had to make 70 of 100 threes, know that early in the season it was no easy task.

“It was not too pretty when I started,” Richardson said.

But Spoelstra runs a very focused player-development program and wasn’t about to let Richardson go home so he could enjoy the rest of his day off. Neither one of them was leaving until he hit 70.

With Spoelstra rebounding, Richardson shoots. This time he hits 65.

Not good enough.

Again. 69.

At this point, Richardson says, he’s pissed. With Spoelstra making him run sprints in between sets of 100, Richardson has fallen just one make short. He rips off his shirt and throws it on the court.

Another set. Again, Richardson hits 69 – but this time through the first 99.

One shot stands between Richardson and either the showers or another set of sprints.

“Are you going to get this or are you going to make me waste my whole day in here,” Richardson recalls Spoelstra saying.

“I was like, ‘Jesus, you’re right. I got to get this together’.”

An hour and a half after Richardson’s original workout had ended, he puts up the final shot, holding the follow through as the ball passes through the net.

“I was like, ‘Thank god, it’s over,’” Richardson said.

His career, however, was just beginning.

"Setting the standard has been big," Richardson said. "I never leave the gym until I make 70. Lately it’s just been every rip. I rarely shoot under 70 now.

Why is all this important for Richardson? The same reason it’s important for any young player in this day and age. As the league trends towards more and more three pointers – along with the resulting pace and space style of offense – the ability for perimeter players to knock down an open threes is becoming not just preferable but mandatory. The sophistication level of professional defenses has reached a point where you can be left playing four-on-five offense if you have multiple non-shooters on the floor.

In other words, Richardson shooting 22-of-35 from deep after the All-Star break is a really, really big deal both for him and a team that was among the worst shooting teams in the league as of a month ago. No, he won’t sustain 60 percent shooting from downtown – that’s high even for Stephen Curry – but if the baseline he’s establishing is somewhere at or above league average then Richardson’s shot is going to play.

And if the shot is going to play, he’s going to play.

He won’t be this open forever, of course. Richardson has been in the rotation – in part due to the injuries to Tyler Johnson and Beno Udrih – for such a short period of time that he’s probably just now started to getting a detailed scout from opposing teams. Teams are playing him generally as a non-shooter, sagging way off to help protect the paint against attacks from Goran Dragic, Dwyane Wade and Joe Johnson.

Right now nobody sees him coming. It’s an entirely different story when they do.

Fortunately, we’ve seen enough of Richardson off the dribble to know that he should be just fine when teams start respecting his space on the floor a little more. He’s already shown an ability to take a dribble or two and step into a short jumper, not to mention levitate when the moment is right.

It’s common to see the success of a young player and want to project and project and keep projecting until you see him as a star, but know that the current version of Richardson is the sort of player every team in the league is looking for. Someone who can shoot, defend and doesn’t need the ball in his hands all the time to fit in.

Oh, we haven’t mentioned his defense yet? It’s pretty good.

Both in the half-court…

And in transition, where Richardson regularly soars in from well behind the play to prevent an easy score.

Though defense has long been Richardson’s calling card, there’s plenty of room for improvement. He hasn’t had a ton of minutes to learn the intricacies of the pro game so he’ll get hung up on screens or beaten one-on-one by taking a bad angle, but the length, athleticism and especially the motor are so good and allow him to cover so much ground that he can get away with plenty of common rookie mistakes.

When Spoelstra wants someone to hound an opposing guard full-court, Richardson has all the tools to do it.

“I would not like him to guard me,” jokes Goran Dragic.

With Winslow able to defend just about any position on the floor and Richardson swapping between defending the guard spots, Miami has had some fantastic defensive showings. There was Monday night against Denver, but also last week in a fourth-quarter blitzing of the Chicago Bulls and a couple weeks before that when the rookies’ ability to fight over screens had Miami on the cusp of beating Golden State.

Before you take that for granted, realize the HEAT have one of the league’s top defenses while depending on a rotation made up largely of veterans into their 30’s and a pair of rookies.

Still, it all comes back to the shot. Defense makes a coach want to and have to play you, but the shooting enables you to keep playing – to keep having a positive impact on the floor.

The shot isn’t all that different than what it had been, either.

“What we saw when we first had [Richardson] in for a workout,” Spoelstra said. “We saw a shot that was mechanically pretty solid. He didn’t shoot a real high three-point percentage, in our drills it wasn’t that high either, but mechanically it was something you could work with.”

The tweaks, giving himself a good base by not twisting his feet while keeping his elbow in, weren’t major but they also weren’t things that sort themselves out without a ton of time in the gym.

That might be the most encouraging thing about Richardson. As with Winslow and Johnson, the work behind the scenes is as the Heat want and expect it to be. And it’s the work that makes you think Richardson could not only have a lengthy career, but a lengthy career with Miami.

We don’t know what he’s going to become from here, but as long as he shoots and defends Richardson is going to have a place on the court.