Why was it a quiet trade deadline for the Miami Heat, and what’s next?
The Miami Heat was active in the days and hours leading up to Thursday’s NBA trade deadline, but ultimately did not make an addition to its roster.
The Heat was one of only three teams in the league that didn’t acquire a player or draft pick ahead of the trade deadline, along with the Chicago Bulls and Cleveland Cavaliers.
Even as the Heat entered Friday night’s matchup against the Houston Rockets at Miami-Dade Arena in sixth place in the Eastern Conference with a 30-25 record and 18 wins in its past 28 games, upgrades would have clearly helped resolve some glaring issues. Miami holds the NBA’s fifth-worst offensive rating, including the second-worst half-court offense since the start of January.
But while the Heat made calls, took calls and discussed trade concepts with teams throughout the league, the organization’s top decision-makers never found a deal they felt warranted the players and/or draft picks it would have taken to complete the trade.
“I think it’s just a testament to the front office. I think they believe in us,” Heat guard Tyler Herro said Friday. “We deserved to run it back. We earned that right to be able to run it back with the success we had last year. I think the success is still there. We just have to find it. But I think the second part of the season, now that everybody knows they’ll be here, guys will have a clearer mind.”
The Heat instead chose to move forward with the hopes of making a larger trade down the road, possibly this summer, instead of spending some of its assets to make a smaller deal this week before the deadline.
▪ The Heat will have two available first-round picks to deal when it’s again permitted to make a trade after its season comes to an end: 2023 and 2028 or 2029. Miami could also unlock its 2027 first-round pick to include in a trade by lifting the lottery protections on the 2025 selection it owes the Oklahoma City Thunder.
▪ Heat guard Kyle Lowry will become a more appealing trade asset this offseason when he’s on a large expiring deal. He’s due $29.7 million in the final season of his contract next season.
▪ Herro will become easier to trade this upcoming offseason when he’s no longer subject to the “poison pill provision” starting on July 1.
The Heat’s only move this week did not bring back a player. Miami traded Dewayne Dedmon and an unprotected 2028 second-round pick to the San Antonio Spurs for cash considerations in a deal that created additional roster space and flexibility under the luxury tax threshold.
Once the Heat dealt Dedmon’s $4.7 million salary, its lack of sweet-spot salary contracts didn’t make it easy for Miami to fulfill the salary-matching element of trades in the hours leading up to the deadline.
Of the 13 trade-eligible Heat players on standard contracts, five (Udonis Haslem, Max Strus, Gabe Vincent, Haywood Highsmith and Omer Yurtseven) are on minimum contracts and one is on a cheap rookie contract (Nikola Jovic). Because of the NBA’s salary-matching rules, even combining three of these small contracts would have only worked to acquire a player making roughly between $9 million and $11 million this season, and that type of deal would have left the Heat with multiple open roster spots.
The other seven Heat players on standard contracts eligible to be traded were Jimmy Butler, Bam Adebayo, Lowry, Duncan Robinson, Victor Oladipo, Caleb Martin, Herro.
Nobody expected Adebayo or Butler to be traded.
It would have been difficult to trade Herro before July because of the “poison pill provision” that was triggered when the Heat extended his rookie contract.
Oladipo can’t be traded without his permission because of the structure of his contract.
Martin is seen as one of the Heat’s assets. He’s in the first season of a manageable three-year, $20.4 million contract and currently starting.
And Lowry and Duncan Robinson are two injured players on expensive contracts who were going to be difficult to unload in a trade without some type of sweetener.
Dedmon’s contract could have been combined with a few of the the Heat’s low-level salary players to trade for a midlevel salary player. So why did the Heat attach a second-round pick to Dedmon to send him to the Spurs on Tuesday — two days before the deadline — and eliminate that option?
According to a league source, the Heat surveyed the market and knew what those type of deals would look like and weren’t interested.
So instead of risking the possibility of the Spurs pulling the offer that was on the table, the Heat agreed to the Dedmon trade on Tuesday. Miami prioritized the roster/-cap flexibility and $4.7 million trade exception that this deal created over the mere possibility of aggregating Dedmon’s salary with another player in a move closer to the deadline.
Now, the Heat’s attention turns to the buyout market.
Once guard Jamaree Bouyea’s 10-day contract expires shortly after the All-Star break, the Heat is on track to have two open roster spots.
Tuesday’s trade that unloaded Dedmon’s salary without getting any players in return carved out enough room for the Heat to fill both roster openings for the remainder of the season while still avoiding the luxury tax.
The Heat could decide to fill one of the two empty roster spots by converting undrafted rookie center Orlando Robinson from a two-way contract to a standard contract to make sure he’s available for the rest of the regular season and the playoffs.
The other spot could be used to shop the buyout market, which could include players such as Russell Westbrook, Danny Green, Reggie Jackson, John Wall, Serge Ibaka, Terrence Ross, Will Barton, Kevin Love, Patrick Beverley and Nerlens Noel, among others.
Many of the top buyout candidates are guards, but Ibaka is one of the few expected frontcourt options. The Heat was in search of frontcourt depth on the trade market, so adding a power rotation player would make sense.
Ibaka, 33, has interest in joining the Heat if he’s bought out, according to a source. It remains to be seen if that interest is mutual.
Ibaka averaged 4.1 points and 2.8 rebounds per game in limited playing time with the Milwaukee Bucks this season before being traded to the Indiana Pacers on Thursday.
For now, though, the Heat pushes forward with its current roster after choosing not to shake things up. The hope is Miami’s best basketball of the season is ahead after what’s so far been an up-and-down year despite returning most of last season’s roster that made it all the way to the East finals.
“We saw what we did last year and even points throughout this year,” Herro said. “We’ve had moments where we’ve looked like the team that we’re supposed to be. So we just got to be able to see it through to the end.”
Erik Spoelstra said: “I’m sure it was on some of the guys’ minds and that was normal. There was a lot of clarity this morning. It’s the same group. This is an organizational philosophy since Pat [Riley] got here. You see it through. Each team has a life span to it. We haven’t seen it through. We feel we have a great opportunity for these 27 games and the playoffs.”
▪ The Heat ruled out Jovic (lower back stress reaction), Lowry (left knee soreness), Oladipo (right ankle sprain), Duncan Robinson (finger surgery) and Yurtseven (left ankle surgery) for Friday’s home game against the Rockets.
Haslem (personal reasons) is out, and Vincent (right ankle inflammation) is probable.
This story was originally published February 10, 2023 at 12:51 PM.
