What will Heat do before Thursday’s trade deadline? A look at the possibilities and obstacles.
Circumstances dictate so much in life, and in the NBA.
When trade deadline week came around last season, the Heat was hovering around the .500 mark and faced a $9.7 million luxury tax bill. With a spot in the playoffs far from a guarantee (Miami didn’t end up making the postseason), the Heat made a move that sent Tyler Johnson and Wayne Ellington to the Suns for Ryan Anderson and trimmed its tax bill to $1.8 million.
As Thursday’s 3 p.m. trade deadline nears this season, the Heat entered Wednesday’s matchup against the Clippers at Staples Center just 1.5 games out of second place in the Eastern Conference at 34-15 and $4.7 million above the luxury-tax line. But with the Heat winning and in contention for a top-four playoff seed, money-saving moves are unlikely this year.
“To shed salary to try to get under the luxury tax, I just don’t see that as an appetite for them right now,” ESPN analyst and former Nets executive Bobby Marks said in a phone interview with the Miami Herald. “I think it would be a little bit different if Miami was the eighth seed or the ninth seed and you have a mandate from ownership to reduce bills. They did that last year.
“I don’t see it as much of a high priority for them to shed salary just based on the performance of this team. I think when you start moving guys around just from a financial angle and you’re 34-15, I think it certainly sends a bad message in the locker room. Knowing those guys in Miami, I don’t think that’s going to be the case.”
If the Heat makes any trades before Thursday’s deadline, it will likely be to help bolster this current roster for the final few months of the regular season, a playoff run and possibly beyond.
With forward Justise Winslow still out indefinitely due to a lower back bone bruise, the Heat has recently been linked to two defensively skilled wing players: Trevor Ariza (before he was dealt from Sacramento to Portland), and The Athletic’s Shams Charania reported Tuesday that Miami has “emerged as a suitor” for Memphis’ Andre Iguodala.
But the Heat faces very real obstacles in getting any deal done before the deadline ...
▪ After signing rookie forward Chris Silva to a standard contract in January, the Heat’s roster stands at the NBA maximum of 15 players. And Miami is just $12,330 below the $138.9 million hard cap that was triggered by the sign-and-trade acquisition of Jimmy Butler.
Because the Heat can’t exceed that hard-cap line this season and is right up against that threshold, it would pretty much need to send out salaries equal or more than any it acquires in a trade. In other words, Miami can’t take on more than $12,330 in salary in any move than the amount it trades away.
“It’s basically the cost of doing business with Jimmy Butler,” Marks said. “... It makes it harder. But the likelihood is that you probably weren’t looking to try to take on a lot of money anyway. You just have to kind of navigate where you are.”
▪ Miami has little to no draft picks to offer in a trade. The Heat currently doesn’t have its 2021 first-round pick (dealt in 2015 Goran Dragic trade) or its 2023 first-round pick (dealt this past summer to land Butler), the Heat isn’t eligible to trade an unprotected first-round pick until 2028. The NBA doesn’t allow teams to be without consecutive future first-round picks, meaning the 2020 pick can’t be traded this week because the 2021 pick already belongs to another team. The 2022 and 2024 selection is also off the table because the 2023 selection has already been moved.
Draft protections in the 2023 first-round selection that run until 2026 tie the other years up. And since teams are not allowed to deal picks further than seven drafts away, the Heat doesn’t have an unprotected first-round pick to trade at the moment.
The Heat can unlock a first-round pick to put in a trade, but it has to first acquire a first-round selection from another team.
The Heat also has only two second-round picks available to trade during the next five years: the pick it’s due in 2022 from either Philadelphia or Denver (Miami is scheduled to get the worse of those two picks from a complicated earlier series of transactions) and its own protected second-round pick in 2024.
▪ The Heat is also looking to preserve max cap space for the summer of 2021. That’s a big deterrent when it comes to Miami trading for any player who has a contract that could possibly eat into its 2021 flexibility. The 2021 free-agent class could include Giannis Antetokounmpo, Gordon Hayward, Victor Oladipo, Andre Drummond and LaMarcus Aldridge. Also, LeBron James, Blake Griffin, Paul George and Kawhi Leonard have player options to become free agents in the summer of 2021.
For example, Pelicans guard Jrue Holiday has a $26.3 million player option for the 2021-22 season. Would the Heat risk the summer of 2021 to trade for Holiday?
“I think if there’s a deal out there that you can take money into 2021-22 and it helps you try to win a championship now and next year, I think you certainly look at it,” Marks said. “I think sometimes cap space turns out to be fool’s gold because you keep on waiting, and you can be waiting for a long time.”
The circumstances surrounding the Heat’s current situation and the obstacles it faces in getting any deal done equates to an unfavorable environment for trades. But anything is possible, especially when Pat Riley is involved.
“The Heat is restricted and playing really well, so it’s hard to kind of tinker with what you have,” Marks said. “So if you put teams in three different categories, they’re probably in category three of probably nothing. It’s hard for them to make a change that would put them up in the Milwaukee level. So I think you’re content kind of where you are.”
This story was originally published February 5, 2020 at 11:07 AM.
