2. Thunder trade Alex Abrines and Domantas Sabonis to the Heat for Dion Waiters and James Johnson
Over the team’s last eight games (all wins), Waiters has been a monster. His play has been impressive enough to both help the team enjoy their longest winning streak in years, and garner himself some nice new hardware.
Waiters arrived in Miami with the reputation of being an inefficient player. He’s a career 41 percent shooter, 34 from beyond-the-arc. In all likelihood, his current run of form is unsustainable. Why not be proactive and look for a deal that would send him to a team that needs immediate help scoring the basketball. A team like the Oklahoma City Thunder.
The Thunder are currently 28-20, which is good for sixth in the Western Conference. The strength of their team lies in their defense; they have a defensive rating of 106.7, sixth-best in the NBA. Their offense is a different story.
The Thunder’s offensive rating (according to Basketball Reference) is 107.6, which is second-worst among playoffs teams in the West. Outside of Russell Westbrook and Victor Oladipo, they have a lack of playmakers and scorers on the roster. It doesn’t help that Enes Kanter (their backup center who provided a scoring punch — too soon? — off the bench) will be out for two months with a broken forearm.
Much like the first move I outlined, this deal is made with the future in mind. Miami is trading away Waiters, who is already 25, and playing somewhat consistently for the first time in his career, along with James Johnson, who turns 30 in a few weeks. In return, they get Oklahoma City’s two best young prospects in Alex Abrines and Domantas Sabonis.
Abrines is a 23-year-old rookie shooting guard from Spain, who is already showing flashes of improvement. Over his last 20 contests, he’s averaging 7.0 points and 1.7 three-pointers per game, on 47 percent shooting from deep. He was drafted early in the second round of 2013’s NBA Draft with the mindset that he would eventually become, among other things, a knockdown shooter. That’s already coming to fruition.
The Heat would also be getting a 20-year-old power forward in Sabonis. His numbers may be modest (6.2 points and 3.6 boards per game), but he’s a guy with a ton of upside. Sabonis came out of college as a stretch-4 with the ability to score in the post as well. If Miami decides to rebuild, they could do worse than adding those two guys to be part of the process.
And the Thunder would not only be getting Waiters, but Johnson too. They would both help OKC with their lack of scoring and playmaking. A lineup of Westbrook-Waiters-Oladipo-Johnson-and-Steven Adams would be versatile and explosive on both sides of the ball. It must also be mentioned that Westbrook is 28, and very dependent on his athleticism. They should be a team that’s in win-now mode.
Ultimately, do I think the Thunder would actually pull the trigger on this move? Probably not, but according to the almighty Trade Machine, it makes OKC five wins better. So it’s not that crazy.