Miami Heats 2015 NBA Trade-Deadline Shopping List: Whether it comes to produce or players, you shouldn’t shop with an empty stomach. This (admittedly) tortured construction gestures in the direction of the problem the Miami Heat have when they consider potential deadline trades as February nears. With the cupboard empty, there are a lot of directions they could dart in—few of which would be helpful to the franchise’s long-range aspirations of returning, quickly, to contention. What’s helpful for the Heat, though, is that this is an organization that’s unusually and refreshingly focused on big goals. Already, Pat Riley and company have turned their attention firmly and completely to the free-agent class of 2016, where Kevin Durant, Chris Paul, Dwight Howard and a coterie of other stars and near-stars could be had. “Pat Riley has put everything into 2016,” Heat reporter Ira Winderman told a CBS radio station. “His 2016 is like his 2010. He’s going to sit back, deal with the results and go for the big splash.” So the Heat will not, it appears, do anything to compromise the cap room they have preserved for the offseason heading into 2016-17. This poses an obvious constraint on the team’s ability to shop around this winter, but it might be a helpful one. Limitations can be clarifying. While the Heat have a handful of positions of need, that’s not the correct way to think about the transactions they might make in the next month. The Heat project at this point is, or should be, more about clearing additional cap space for this summer and 2016, while—ideally—landing a piece or two who might stick around long term and be a member of the next Heat champion. So what moves could Miami make? Several, actually. We’ll take a look at three, listed by the stakes of the move. A slight tweak, a splashy transaction and a bombshell. The Tweak Luol Deng has been good in Miami, which means there’s a good chance the Heat move on. The Sudanese forward signed a two-year, $20 million deal with the Heat after LeBron James left town, and a down 2013-14 season for Deng left him without any longer-term contract options. But he’s played his way into the deadline conversation with his stellar shooting—his 57.4 true shooting percentage is a career high—and rock-solid defense. The Grizzlies have already inquired about the forward, and though Miami rebuffed them, more offers are likely to follow. One team that makes a bit of sense as a trading partner is the Los Angeles Lakers. The Lakers have reportedly long pined for Deng, and they have a reasonably strong potential return in Jordan Hill. In Hill, the Heat would get a dynamic rebounder who would go a long way toward solving their long-standing rebounding problem. Per BoxScoreGeeks, he averages two rebounds per game better than the average center per 48 minutes. He was also roughly twice as productive as the average 5 in the previous three full seasons. There’s also this: While Deng has a player option for $10 million in 2015-16, Hill has a $9 million team option. The Heat could take a look at Hill and potentially bring him back, or decline the option to free up more cash to possibly make a run at Jimmy Butler or Kawhi Leonard this summer. Hill gives them flexibility—and certainty—that Deng doesn’t. This move wouldn’t be a game-changer, but it’d be an incremental step in the right direction. Smart teams take those. The Splash Michael Carter-Williams is a strange basketball player. He can’t shoot a lick yet—100 games into his pro career, his field-goal percentage is 39.8—but he possesses an unusual and valuable skill set. He runs the floor like a gazelle, rebounds and has rare instincts and court vision. At 6’6”, the point guard is sufficiently long-limbed to get his arms in opponents’ passing lanes. He’s brimming with potential, which erupts periodically into stat lines like, say, the 18/16/10 bomb he dropped on the Dallas Mavericks on Nov. 29. There’s a lot there. And yet, Philadelphia is willing to move him. This would be a difficult trade to facilitate—in part because Miami is bereft of both the draft picks and high-upside talent the Sixers seem to be desirous of—but MCW would potentially solve Miami’s thorny problem at the point while giving the team a high-level prospect to try out in Spoelstra’s system. A trade to get Carter-Williams would be complex, and it would foreclose the possibility of the aforementioned Deng deal. But the following three-team deal checks out according to ESPN’s NBA Trade Machine. * Heat acquire: Michael Carter-Williams and Steve Nash * Sixers acquire: Julius Randle * Lakers acquire: K.J. McDaniels, Shabazz Napier and Luol Deng It’s a long shot that the Lakers give up on Randle so early, but they’d be getting a reasonably strong return for a player many evaluators have concerns about. And the Heat possibly get their point guard of the future. The Bombshell We’ll delve deeper into this in a piece next week, but Chris Bosh is not a smart investment for the Miami Heat right now. A team in Miami’s position—one that’s two years away from contention—has little use for a soon-to-be 31-year-old big man on a monster contract who doesn’t rebound. But the Washington Wizards might. The Wiz are on the edge of contention in the weak East, and they are an impact player away from being able to win right now. Bosh, for all his liabilities, is an expert at creating offensive spacing, a strong perimeter defender and has a bit of experience pushing star-studded teams over the top. He’s selfless enough to be whatever the Wizards need him to be. The Heat, meanwhile, according to ESPN’s Trade Machine, could land Nene and Otto Porter. Nene would be in the trade to make the salaries line up—and his contract runs out, conveniently, right before the summer of 2016 when the Heat are primed to make a splash. Porter, meanwhile, has struggled to find his footing in the NBA, but the 21-year-old is still just 20 months removed from being the third player selected in the 2013 NBA draft. The Heat might be able to find something there. And they also might get a chance to use their own draft selection. Miami has a first-round pick that it owes to Philly, via Cleveland, if it picks anywhere between 11 and 30. But if it finishes in the top 10, the pick is Miami’s. This incentivizes a quick and easy late-season tank job to restock the depleted Heat coffers with more young talent. Moving on from Bosh wouldn’t be a popular move, but it might be the right one. 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Posted on: Fri, 16 Jan 2015 16:22:08 +0000
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