Pat Riley wants to win now, but admits 2021 future flexibility remains a priority for Heat
Pat Riley is all about winning right now. The Heat’s president admits that.
But with Thursday’s NBA trade deadline now in the past, Riley admits he had to consider the team’s future flexibility when making decisions this week. The Heat added former first-team All-NBA defender Andre Iguodala, and veterans Jae Crowder and Solomon Hill this week in a three-team, seven-player deal with Memphis and Minnesota, but the Heat also couldn’t complete part two of the team’s trade plan because of the future consequences it carried.
Miami did not trade for high-scoring Oklahoma City forward Danilo Gallinari, after extensive discussions, primarily because Gallinari and the Heat could not agree on a multiyear extension. According to a source, Gallinari wanted a deal that would have included substantial guaranteed money in 2021-22, and the Heat wasn’t willing to do that because it wants to preserve max cap space for the summer of 2021 for a possible pursuit of Milwaukee’s Giannis Antetokounmpo, who can become a free agent that summer.
“Am I disappointed? Yes. I wanted everything,” Riley admitted on a conference call with reporters Friday when asked about not completing the trade for Gallinari. “But I wasn’t going to, nor was Micky [Arison] nor was Andy [Elisburg] or was Nick [Arison], were we going to compromise. A two-year plan, that’s what we’re looking at. It would be this year and then it would be next year. And whatever machinations that we would have to prepare for, if/or things would happen after next season, then we would do that. So, you got to take some risks here, and I think at that time, when you do it, you never know that things are really going to work out. But we want to win.
“I like Gallo. And I think he would have fit in here really well, but it didn’t work out. And somewhere you have to sort of draw a line in the sand for your team.”
Miami did not want Gallinari, an impending free agent, merely as a three-month rental because of the draft compensation that would have been required by Oklahoma City to complete the deal. In order to complete the trade with Oklahoma City, the belief is the Heat would have had to lift the protections of its 2023 first-round pick it owes the Thunder to unlock its 2025 first-round pick to trade to Oklahoma City in a deal for Gallinari.
Without lifting those protections, the Heat does not have an unprotected first-round pick to put in a trade at the moment. Miami can only lift the protections off the 2023 first-round selection when in direct trade negotiations with Oklahoma City because the Thunder owns the pick.
Despite not acquiring Gallinari, Riley believes the Heat is a better team than it was two days ago after acquiring Iguodala, Crowder and Hill. Even though it has been almost eight months since Iguodala has played in an NBA game, as he and the Grizzlies mutually agreed he would stay away from the team after Golden State traded him to Memphis this past summer, Riley knows the 36-year-old Iguodala can help the Heat immediately.
“He hasn’t played in seven months, you’ve just got to try to do as much homework as you can on that part of it, and then you hope for the best,” Riley said. “And what we got back, from all the people that we had talked to, or even from our analytic department here, is that everything from last year, he’s elite. He’s an elite defender, an elite team defender. He’s an elite assist-to-turnover percentage. He ranks up into the top of those areas that are real tangible. And, so, you don’t lose that in seven months.
“When I talked to him, he said, ‘I got to gain some weight.’ I think he weighed in at 216 and six percent [body fat]. So he’s in shape. He definitely is going to have to get his basketball leg under him. But we’re confident that he’s healthy and he’s excited and he can really help us. And that’s why we went after him.”
As for trading away Justise Winslow, James Johnson and Dion Waiters to complete the deal, Riley said parting with Winslow “was the most difficult part.” Winslow is with the Grizzlies, Johnson ended up with the Timberwolves and Waiters is reportedly going to be waived or bought out by the Grizzlies to join another team.
“It just was a very, very difficult thing for us to come to grips with because he’s a young player,” Riley said of trading Winslow, who was drafted by the Heat with the 10th overall pick in 2015. “I know he has missed like 150 games over his 4.5 years with us or something like that. But we’re going to miss him. The Memphis Grizzlies got a great young player to go in to their organization of young guys.”
Of Johnson and Waiters, Riley said: “They had some great moments and some great years for us. The two injuries with the ankle with Dion and also the abductor surgery with JJ, actually he had to have it done twice. But that wasn’t what sort of made us move in another direction. They had a good run with us. They were injured and they had issues and all that stuff. But getting back Jae Crowder and getting back Solomon Hill, I think those guys this year can help us. So, I wish them the best. I wish JJ and Dion the very best, and I had a lot of conversations with those guys in my office, on the court. They’re good people. They are.”
The Heat might not be done making moves either.
Riley mentioned “going after a buyout maybe later on” to help add rim protection to the roster, with the Heat allowing opponents to shoot 66.1 percent from inside the restricted area (third-highest opponent shooting percentage in the NBA) entering Friday. To add a player in the buyout market, the Heat would have to open a roster spot by waiving one of its current players.
The goal with all of these moves over the next year is to improve the roster as much as possible without sacrificing 2021 salary cap flexibility. With the Heat entering Friday’s game against the Kings at 34-16 and just 2.5 games out of second place in the Eastern Conference, the potential is there to make a deep playoff run.
“I feel a little bit more confident that we can do something,” Riley said of his expectations for the Heat for the rest of the season. “It’s going to be a dog fight over here. I don’t care what anybody says. It looks as though Milwaukee is running away with the record as the top seed. But two through six, this is going to be a dog fight.”
This story was originally published February 7, 2020 at 5:58 PM.
