Pistons Offered Jonas Jerebko to Miami for Norris Cole

The Miami Heat fan base has grown tired of backup point guard Norris Cole, there is absolutely no doubt about that. Cole, in his fourth NBA season, has seen his career regress, instead of the progress, like Pat Riley and company would have loved to see.

On the season, Cole is averaging 6.3 points and just 3.5 assists a game on 39% shooting. His shooting has been worse beyond the three point line, sitting at an atrocious 26%. His free throw shooting is even down, just below 70% for the season.

Cole has amassed a PER (Player Efficiency Rating) of 9.93. For those people who don’t follow analytics, that’s very bad.

Its well-known that Riley has tried to trade Cole for the better part of the year. And according to Barry Jackson of the Miami Herald, the Pistons made an interesting trade offer for Cole’s services.

"A source in contact with Detroit confirmed the Pistons offered impending free agent power forward Jonas Jerebko to the Heat for Cole. But as MLLive.com reported, Detroit rejected Miami’s demand that the Pistons also take Danny Granger, who’s due $2.2 million next season."

As we can see over on ESPN’s Trade Machine, a straight up trade of Cole for Jerebko works perfectly. Hollinger stats indicate such a trade would knock off two wins from the Pistons win total, while it would not affect the record of the Heat.

Cole, while he is widely chastised by Heat fans, still has his moments, including Monday night’s win against the New York Knicks. In that game against the Knicks, Cole played 29 minutes, scored 12 points, and racked up 8 assists.

Cole is a player that Riley will not just give away, for the sake of giving away.

However, Jerebko could have been an ideal fit with the Miami Heat roster. Jerebko has averaged 5.3 points per game in 15.3 minutes. He’s shooting a decent 37% from three’s and shot over 41% last season. With Danny Granger, James Ennis, and Shawne Williams proving to be ineffective, for the most part, Jerebko could have filled a huge role on the Heat roster.

But if the Heat were to pull the trigger on this deal, what would have it meant for other players on the roster?

There’s a legitimate argument that Danny Granger may have been the worst acquisition for the Heat this past offseason. Granger has already missed 22 games for the Heat this season. When he has played, he’s looked like a shell of himself.

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On the season, Granger is averaging 6.5 points per game on 40% shooting from the field, and 36% from beyond the arc. Not very promising numbers for a player that’s likely to exercise his player option and be a burden to the Heat roster for the 2015-2016 season.

Since Cole is an expiring contract, that makes him one of the few tradeable assets the Heat do have. He’s a young point guard that has shown some flashes of being a capable role player, especially since he was a rotation player for the Heat’s two championship teams.

With Cole having one of the higher trade values among Heat players, I don’t fault Riley for trying to package Granger along with Cole. Unfortunately, the Pistons didn’t budge and ended up signing John Lucas III to fill their point guard need.

This means Heat fans need to continue hoping for games like Monday from Cole and hope Granger can realize he’s not much more than a spot up shooter at this stage in his career, as neither are likely to go anywhere, at least by this year’s trade deadline.