The Miami Heat have one goal in mind: Return to the top of the Eastern Conference. How they get there is what Pat Riley and co. need to answer.
The Miami Heat nearly rode the win streak all the way until the All-Star break before stumbling to two-straight losses, with a road game against the Houston Rockets still to come. The Heat’s front office and team still need to sort out what happened over the first half of the season, and the All-Star break is as good a time as any.
Here are a few questions the team should be asking themselves as they approach the NBA trade deadline and end of the season.
Who do we keep?
The Heat have oodles of players on expiring contracts, including Dion Waiters, James Johnson and Willie Reed. Those three have been the most impressive, and have made the case to get paid this summer. The Heat need to decide whether or not they want to keep them around.
However, it’s not as binary as “yes, let’s keep him” and “nah, I’m good.” The Heat have to decide what sort of price they are willing to pay for them. Pat Riley and Andy Elisburg* took the wait and see approach with Hassan Whiteside last season. Rather than trade him at the deadline, they waited until the offseason and were willing to max him out.
*Side note: if Chicago can have GarPax, can we please show some love to Elisburg and include him every time we mention Riley? He’s as much a genius of the salary cap as Riley is at talent. I’m proposing “Rilesburg.”
I doubt Rilesburg (oh, I like that) will come close to maxing out Waiters, but if a team comes in and offers him–or Johnson or Reed–a Luol Deng-type deal (the Lakers blew him away with an $18 million per year offer) the Heat won’t be able to come up to that. Or maybe they will. It all depends on what price they are willing to pay for those three.
Waiters could command between $10-15 million, Johnson around $12 million and Reed around $10 million per season.
To re-sign those three, which have become core pieces of any success Miami has had this season, would take nearly all of the team’s available cap space. Is having those three as opposed to, say, chasing Gordon Hayward, better for team building? These are the questions Rilesburg needs to answer.
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Sell high?
If Riley decides that this team’s ceiling isn’t where he wants it to be, aka Eastern Conference contenders, he may entertain the idea of selling high. Could he flip Waiters for a late-first round pick? Is it worth packaging James Johnson and other pieces for assets?
At some point the Heat are going to have to come to terms that they have very few assets, and need to replenish its arsenal one way or another. The most efficient way could be to flip expiring deals for draft picks down the line, rather than let them walk away for nothing.
Or…
What if the Heat decide they want to go the other way and build on the veteran group of Goran Dragic, Waiters, Johnson and Hassan Whiteside? The group that helped spur the 13-game win streak.
That makes young pieces like Justise Winslow, Josh Richardson and Tyler Johnson expendable. Riley may decide he wants to flip those pieces into a veteran, All-Star caliber player either at the deadline or this summer.
With Winslow out for the remainder of the season with a shoulder injury, there won’t be an opportunity to watch him further. That could muck up the decision-making process.
Richardson should return after the break. At one point, him and Johnson were considered the backcourt of the future. Has the recent play of Dragic and Waiters shifted Riley’s thinking?
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Is it time to tank?
This is the nuclear option. However, Riley, according to the Heat’s broadcast, said that he doesn’t believe in tanking.
“You don’t ever mess with the karma of winning. Never. You let the game of basketball take it where it will take you, OK. And I think this might take us somewhere. So, I will defer the pick for the winning. Because that’s what we’re about here.”
As noble as that sounds, it’s not true. Not completely. The Heat won’t go Full Hinkie, but they pulled a soft tank in 2015 that helped them land a top-10 pick that turned into Winslow. If that pick landed outside of the top-10, they would have lost it via trade.
The Heat tank if and when they have to, and if Riley decides his best chance to land a star is via the draft, he will do it again.
How would Riley come to that decision? Well, after answering those first batch of questions. What is this team’s ceiling? Can he flip these current players–either veterans or youngsters–for a star?
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Can Rilesburg sign a star in free agency? The new CBA, which incentivizes players to remain with their teams, could make that difficult.
A better draft pick could increase the chance of landing a star and, if it seems like neither of the current options will lead to a team-changing talent, it could be time for the Heat to create their own luck.