This Miami Heat team was a huge Bosh health scare from being major players in what turned out to be a less than exemplary Eastern Conference playoff run. A great starting five, young pieces maturing on the bench, and a championship tested coach to lead them.
However, it’s a yearly thing, where players retire, leave for free agency, or get shipped out in hopes of pushing a team over the edge into the promised land. For the Heat, they have big name players up for free agency (Dwyane Wade, Goran Dragic, Loul Deng), but Wade and Dragic are expected to stay put. Deng’s salary stopped matching his production a couple years ago, so he may opt into the last year of his deal to collect as much money as possible.
What that leaves for the Heat if they want to improve (outside of the draft), is a trade. Most of the Heat’s desirable players are cost efficient. For example, the Heat’s three most intriguing young players (Hassan Whiteside, James Ennis, and Tyler Johnson) COMBINE to make $2.67 million next season. Those salaries relative to their production last season make them no-brainers to keep. So what that does, is leave the Heat with the option of dangling a couple veterans with expiring contracts that would appeal to other teams: Chris Andersen and Mario Chalmers.
Andersen would be the least likely of the two to be traded, not only because of his $5 million salary, but because of his spotty injury history the past few years. He’s a great energy guy when healthy, 5.3 points per game and 5.0 rebounds per game are pretty good numbers if a team is looking for a backup center.
An interesting deal for the Bird, would be a swap with the Clippers. Sending Andersen to LA for Spencer Hawes would be a deal that fits not only financially, but in play style as well, as Andersen’s game resembles DeAndre Jordan’s somewhat, and Hawes could be another floor stretching big for the Heat.
Chalmers, on the other hand, is a pretty viable trade option. His production (10.2 points per game and 3.8 assists per game) doesn’t jump off the page, but in the right setting, he can be valuable (see the previous four years prior to this season). A three-point shooter that takes pride in playing defense, is a pretty hot commodity in today’s league. His $4.3 million expiring contract isn’t bad either.
An ideal trade scenario for Chalmers is pretty hard to find, but I could see him in a Knicks uniform, playing Derek Fisher’s old role in the triangle.
Both guys have become staples in the Heat organization, so I don’t see either one actually getting traded. But if the Heat could make a move, I believe those two would be the most likely to be moved.