Miami Heat Trade Value Rankings

Inspired by Grantland’s NBA Trade Value column, Wes Goldberg puts together a massively smaller piece narrowed down to players on the Miami Heat.

Every year, starting this year, I will put together a Miami Heat Trade Value column. I was obviously inspired by Bill Simmons’ annual column in which he breaks down all the impact NBA players. Because this is a Miami Heat site, I thought it would be fun to do the same thing with the handful on players in South Beach.

But let’s say I started writing this every year last year. It is worth taking a look at how I would have ranked the players prior to the 2013-14 season.

1. LeBron James – Best player in the game who single-handedly halted free agency this summer.

2. Chris Bosh – Versatile big who defends the pick-and-roll and stretches the floor at an elite level. Both among the most important skill sets in the modern NBA.

3. Dwyane Wade – Coming off a season in which he played 69 games, shot a then-career high in true shooting percentage and was seemingly becoming less afraid of taking three’s (although he completely steered away from them IRL).

4. Ray Allen – Elite three-point shooter and top-notch locker room leader making $3.2 million.

5. Chris Andersen – A team on a playoff push would have traded a legitimate asset for a plug-and-play rim protector and energy guy on the veteran minimum.

6.  Norris Cole  – Rookie scale contract for an improving point guard who was going to push Mario Chalmers in the starting lineup.

7. Mario Chalmers – Not complete sh*t just yet. Valuable three-point shooter.

8. Greg Oden – The Heat and Spurs both wanted him.

9. Joel Anthony – $3.8 million contract is very tradeable. Valuable defender and try hard.

10. Shane Battier – $3.7 million glue guy. Hypothetically a one-year rental for a team making a Finals push (think Indiana Pacers, Oklahoma City Thunder or Houston Rockets).

11. Udonis Haslem – On his last legs, but his $4.3 million deal is movable and could be matched in a potential Evan Turner trade.*

11-14. Michael Beasley, Rashard Lewis, Jarvis Varnado, James Jones – Would be traded only to satisfy contract demands in another hypothetical deal.

*Okay, I wouldn’t have actually wrote that before the season started.

Now things have changed quite a bit since last season. Wade entered a maintenance program, though it seems like he’s entered a retirement home. Chalmers did whatever the opposite of reaching Super Saiyan is, LeBron went to Cleveland and will take Ray Allen with him, Shane Battier joined the World Wide Leader, Bosh signed a huge deal (we’ll get to that later), Cole since signed an extension, the Oden thing didn’t exactly work out and Anthony was already traded.

But I didn’t write this column that I write every year last year because I’m starting to write it every year this year. So let’s get to it.

But first, here are the rules:

1. Contracts matter

2. Age matters

3. Position scarcity matters – for example, Bosh plays a premium position, but Luol Deng doesn’t because there are far fewer legitimate centers (or stretch bigs) than small forwards (the NBA’s deepest position).

4. Pay attention. 15 is least tradeable, No. 1 is most valuable.

Alright, noooowwwwww let’s get to it.