Podcast: Where does Heat fit into East’s post-trade deadline hierarchy? Dragic to Miami?
The trade deadline was quiet for the Miami Heat, but wild for the Eastern Conference.
The Philadelphia 76ers’ swap with the Brooklyn Nets to bring James Harden to Pennsylvania and send Ben Simmons to New York shook up the NBA, and potentially gave the East two new contenders.
With the dust now mostly settled, where does the Heat now sit in the conference’s hierarchy? On a new episode of the Heat Check podcast, David Wilson and Anthony Chiang, the Miami Herald’s Heat beat writer, agree Miami is still right near the top, duking it out with the defending-champion Milwaukee Bucks for supremacy.
Still, the Heat’s path to get to the 2022 NBA Finals got a bit more complicated last Thursday. Harden solidifies the 76ers as one of the best teams in the league and, if he plays up to his potential, turns them into a legitimate title contender. Simmons is a downgrade from Harden, but the Nets are still a dangerous loomer because of how good superstar forward Kevin Durant is.
Those two teams’ potential ascension will put some of Miami’s weaknesses under the microscope, just like the Heat’s XXXX loss to the Dallas Mavericks on Wednesday did. The good news is Miami can basically spend the entire second half of the season trying to fix its one glaring issue -- the halfcourt offense.
Reinforcements should be on the way, too. Wing Victor Oladipo is headed to G League Sioux Falls to work out during the All-Star break and presumably keep ramping up toward an impending return. Goran Dragic is also a free agent and, although the heat hasn’t yet reached out to his people, it wouldn’t surprise anyone to see the guard return to Miami after the San Antonio Spurs waived him Thursday.
To wrap things up, we do a quick preview of the 2022 NBA All-Star Game by appreciating Erik Spoelstra, who will coach in the game Sunday for only the second time in his career. Finally, the coach is getting his full due.
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