The NBA trade deadline has passed. Here’s where the Miami Heat stands
It turns out the Heat’s big move came Wednesday, and it was its only move.
Thursday’s 3 p.m. trade deadline passed without another trade involving the Heat after Wednesday’s decision to send Tyler Johnson and Wayne Ellington to the Suns in exchange for Ryan Anderson.
With the two-for-one trade, Miami currently has a 13-man roster. Teams are allowed to go up to two weeks at a time with 13 players, which will force the Heat to add another player to reach the league minimum of 14.
As for the Heat’s financial situation, it’s still a luxury tax team.
Wednesday’s trade lowered the Heat’s luxury tax bill from $9.7 million to $1.8 million. But Miami reached the deadline still $1.2 million over the luxury tax threshold.
The Heat has until the end of the regular season to make moves to get completely below the line to avoid paying the penalty.
Now that the trade deadline has passed, that becomes a lot harder to do. A buyout before the end of the regular season is the only realistic way Miami can trim its payroll to get out of the tax, which is hard to envision happening with who’s left on the roster.
There is no ownership mandate to get below the tax threshold, though.
Along with the financial implications of Wednesday’s trade, it also worked to tighten what was a crowded Heat rotation. With Johnson and Ellington off the team, Miami has two fewer guards on its roster.
The move leaves Justise Winslow, Josh Richardson, Goran Dragic, Dion Waiters, Dwyane Wade and Rodney McGruder as Miami’s guards on a team that plays a lot of three-guard lineups. Dragic is not expected back until after the All-Star break as he continues to recover from right knee surgery, so the Heat is left with five guards to choose from for at least the next few weeks.
Johnson had made three consecutive starts before the trade, so the Heat will have to replace him in the starting lineup starting Friday against the Kings. Waiters, Wade and McGruder are the options, with Winslow and Richardson already in Miami’s starting group.
Waiters seems like the logical choice, especially since he was the Heat’s starting shooting guard before undergoing ankle surgery in January 2018. By moving Waiters into the starting lineup, it allows Wade to remain in his sixth man role.
Since making his return Jan. 2, Waiters has averaged 7.9 points on 38.8 percent shooting from the field and 29.4 percent shooting from three-point range in 19.4 minutes in 14 games while being used off the bench.
But remember McGruder also started at the position for most of the season before falling out of the rotation recently. So he’s a candidate to start in Johnson’s spot, too.
The Heat’s roster now looks like this: Hassan Whiteside, Bam Adebayo, Kelly Olynyk, Udonis Haslem, James Johnson, Derrick Jones Jr., Anderson, Winslow, McGruder, Richardson, Wade, Waiters and Dragic.
When Dragic returns from injury, the Heat could go with a nine-man rotation of Whiteside, Adebayo, Olynyk, Johnson, Winslow, Richardson, Wade, Waiters and Dragic.
While the Heat did not make a trade Thursday, a few of the teams at the top of the Eastern Conference did.
The Raptors made the biggest move of the day, acquiring center Marc Gasol from the Grizzlies. Memphis received Jonas Valanciunas, Delon Wright, C.J. Miles and a 2024 second-round pick in return.
Meanwhile, the Bucks traded for Nikola Mirotic, which adds another talented piece to the team with the league’s top record. Milwaukee sent Jason Smith and Stanley Johnson to the Pelicans as part of the deal.
All of this comes just days after the 76ers added forward Tobias Harris in a trade with the Clippers.
With LeBron James now out West, the East is wide open and there are multiple teams pushing hard to take advantage.
We’ll have more on the trade deadline from the Heat’s perspective later today, after the team’s afternoon practice in Sacramento …
This story was originally published February 7, 2019 at 3:18 PM.
