Cote: Pat Riley must land his last great whale in Giannis to Miami Heat | Opinion
The Miami Heat has built a sneaky-good roster infused with promising youth.
It is not good enough to compete for an NBA championship.
It is good enough (they hope) to compete for Giannis Antetokounmpo.
Oh, how I love good trade talk! The sexy speculation, the intoxicating scent of maybe. (You do, too, admit it.) Hope springs eternal — or at least annually prior to the trade deadline — and hope is totally free. The one caveat: That your dream might be unfulfilled, like love unrequited. Crushed like a scurrying cucaracha on the kitchen floor.
And so the NBA’s in-season trade deadline looms Feb. 5, this Thursday afternoon, with Milwaukee’s Antetokounmpo the bull’s-eye center of it and Miami high among the many teams reportedly most interested. Biggest rivals for the “Greek Freak” are said to be the New York Knicks, Golden State Warriors and Minnesota Timberwolves. San Antonio and maybe Houston as well? And might the rich get greedy with even Detroit, the best team in the East, entering the bidding war?
Heat fans who are readers of tea leaves might have been trumpeting with joy Thursday as Antetokounmpo’s mom, Veronica, posted on Facebook a photo without description of her son standing in street clothes on the Heat’s court. And it couldn’t hurt that Giannis and Bam Adebayo are friendly and have the same agent, could it?
Miami appears ready to blow up its roster to land Antetokounmpo, who would be the franchise’s and Pat Riley’s biggest trade or free agent prize since LeBron James in 2010.
And Miami should go all out. The present iteration of the Heat is stuck in play-in purgatory ... pretty good, but nobody’s idea of a championship contender. A massive jolt is needed.
The Giannis drama could play out within days, or be delayed to summer if Milwaukee opts to wait until after the season to trade Giannis if it deals him at all.
In sports the transaction can be more exciting than the action, the guessing as good as the games. And no team in the South Florida market feeds us with this, better or more often, than the Heat.
Riley swings for the fences. Casts for the “whales.”
The then-new club president had barely settled into his office off Biscayne Boulevard in 1995 when he swung a blockbuster deal to acquire Alonzo Mourning.
The franchise is about to celebrate the 20th anniversary of its 2006 championship — which happened because Riley acquired Shaquille O’Neal to join rising superstar Dwyane Wade.
Miami’s second and third championships happened because of the Big 3: Megastar LeBron and Chris Bosh joining Wade for that mesmerizing 2010-14 run.
Less impactful but notable, Riley added Jimmy Butler to join the Bam Adebayo/Tyler Herro core in 2020, though Butler fell short of delivering a championship before eventually pouting his way lout of town and being traded one year ago, last Feb. 6.
Butler was not a whale; maybe a Beluga sturgeon?
Now Riley, at age 80, casts for his last great whale.
Antetokounmpo is a two-time league MVP, a champion, former Defensive Player of the Year, nine-time all-star and undiminished at age 31 — a 6-11 play-anywhere superstar. Though currently out for several more weeks with a significant calf injury, that should not diminish interest. He remains top-tier, averaging 28 points, 10 rebounds, 5.6 assists and shooting a career-high 64.5%.
But can Miami close the deal and boat the whale?
The fishing has been spotty lately, since adding Butler. Bradley Beal, DeMar DeRozan, Donovan Mitchell, Damian Lillard and Kevin Durant — twice — all have been linked to Heat pursuits in recent years, none of the wooing reaching fruition.
It would take a ton to wrest Antetokounmpo from Milwaukee, and a smidge more than the next-best offer.
Cobbling together all available intel on what Miami might offer, I would guess a starting point of Herro, rising star Kel’el Ware, Jaime Jaquez Jr., likely one additional promising young player, both of Miami’s first-round draft picks that it is currently able to trade (2030 and ‘32) and the expiring contract of Terry Rozier. (Rozier remains on indefinite unpaid leave by the NBA because of last October’s arrest by federal agents over a sports gambling probe, but Miami is hopeful the league will allow him to be included in a trade.)
We’re told Adebayo is all but off-limits in a deal. Beyond that, playing alongside Abebayo surely would be an enticement in Antetokounmpo finding Miami an attractive landing spot.
The Bucks waiting until the summer to trade Antetokounmpo might benefit Miami by allowing it to trade four first-round picks, not just the two now tradeable. But the Knicks’ offer also might be sweeter this coming summer than now. This could be an incentive for Milwaukee to wait.
Betting odds favor Milwaukee holding onto Giannis through the trade deadline. But if traded now, the Knicks, Heat and Warriors are 1-2-3 as tightly bunched favorites.
The Heat and others also have an obvious eye on available Ja Morant. The odds say the Memphis Grizzlies might not trade him but that if they do, Miami is a favorite to get him. Morant is a former all-star, still only 26, though his stock has cratered due to injury problems, off-court suspension issues and declining performance.
The Heat, as it should, is believed to be focusing on Antetokounmpo as a trade-deadline priority, with Morant as a secondary option, a consolation prize of sorts.
Miami should go hard after the Milwaukee big man because this is a win-now sport and league, and adding Antetokoumpo would instantly make Miami a championship contender to a degree it is not now. The Bucks superstar is one year younger than Shaq was when that trade led to the Heat’s first title.
Miami’s Ware-led core of quality young players should be used as trade bait if the trade is big enough, rather than nurture and wait for some future that might never arrive. This team, as is, is fairly exciting, pretty solid, sitting at 26-23 as I write this. Trying to inch up out of play-in purgatory and matter. Trying to avoid a third straight first-round playoff exit.
The status quo needs a massive jolt to put a fourth Heat championship in play.
Worth the cost, his name is Giannis Antetokounmpo.
Now, straight out of Ernest Hemingway’s “The Old Man and the Sea,” it is time for Riley to land the big prize again — his last great whale.
