Miami Heat fake trade: A proposition for the Los Angeles Clippers
By Simon Smith
Here at All U Can Heat, we’ll be running a series in which we build and contemplate (fake) trades between the Miami Heat and all 29 other NBA teams. In part nine, we looked at a trade with the 76ers. In part 10, we dial-up the Los Angeles Clippers.
While the Miami Heat had a reasonably steady summer, the Los Angeles Clippers was the exact opposite.
On top of hiring Hall-of-Famer Jerry West as a consultant, and relieving head coach Doc Rivers of his front office duties, the franchise dealt away their floor general in All-Star point guard Chris Paul.
In return for Paul, the Clippers received a host of new faces to significantly improve the depth of the ball club. However, it’s probably left more questions than answers heading into the upcoming season.
While the trade brought in defensive minded point guard Patrick Beverley, the Clippers also brought in a new point guard via free agency in Milos Tedosic. The native Serbian has been regarded as probably the elite point guard outside of the NBA. And just one look at some of his YouTube highlights illustrates just what the Clippers saw when bringing him aboard.
This is where the Heat can enter the equation and provide them with a unique look.
Last season, Tyler Johnson emerged as one of the elite bench performers in the league, averaging 13.7 points, 4.0 rebounds and 3.2 assists in 29.8 minutes per game. Playing all 73 games off the bench, Johnson was a vital component of the Heat second unit that helped the team to a 30-11 record ion the second half of last season.
Therefore, the addition of Johnson would help solve the Clippers dilemma of anointing their backup floor general.
For the Heat, this provides them with a terrific defensive presence in Beverley as their backup point, who can also play off the ball as he demonstrated last season playing alongside James Harden. For the season, Beverley averaged 9.5 points, 5.9 rebounds and 4.2 assists, while hitting at a 38.2 percent clip from 3-point range.
Furthermore, the Heat would also be fitting a need with the addition of Sam Dekker. While primarily a small forward, Dekker would aptly be able to fill the starting 4 spot role vacated by the departed Luke Babbitt. At 6-foot-9, Dekker’s ability to stretch thew floor would also allow the Heat the comfort of continuing to bring James Johnson off the bench, which he did such distinction last season.
In the first of two starts last season filling in for Ryan Anderson, Dekker thrived in scoring 30 points, which included hitting 6-of-11 from long-range.
And aside from the on court contributions, the Heat would be avoiding after this season the final two years and $34.4 million remaining on the contract of Johnson. By way of comparison, Beverley is earning just $10.5 million over there next two seasons.
Next: Analyzing how Tyler Johnson scores for the Heat
In all, the Clippers find themselves with an elite presence off the bench in Johnson, whereas the Heat fill some areas of need while keeping their cap flexibility in tact in the coming years.