The Miami Heat’s Wayne Ellington is one of the league’s best 3-point shooters, yet he hasn’t been utilized at all in the past few weeks for Miami. While the “man with the golden arm” has been healthy, he has not received minutes for 9 games in a row.
Head coach Erik Spoelstra illustrates the frustrations he has had with the lineups via Barry Jackson of the Miami Herald below:
"“It’s something that’s very difficult and these are the decisions that this position is required to make,” Spoelstra said of Ellington’s lack of playing time. “They’re not easy decisions. I’ll be frank, it makes me sick to my stomach that I can’t find the minutes for Wayne. Our team went through an adjustment period in December, some other guys stepped up, some lineup started to emerge. That’s not an indictment on his play. He’s professional and mature enough to know he just has to stay with it and it’ll come around his way again. But that doesn’t take away, at all, how difficult it is. I have great empathy for a guy like Wayne.”"
The best decision moving forward is to either hold off on playing Ellington and just have him as a solid depth piece if any more injuries happen this season, or trade him because he is on a 1-year deal and will likely sign elsewhere this summer.
And while Ellington’s trade value is not the highest it has been over the past few seasons, teams can still look to his career year last season and hope for that same player.
2017-18 stats (77 games in 26.3 MPG): 11.2 PPG – shooting splits 40.7/39.2/85.9
2018-19 stats: (20 games in 22.7 MPG): 8.3 PPG – shooting splits 35.8/36.5/84.6
With those numbers, you could probably find a solid deal sending Ellington to a team like the Philadelphia 76ers for a few 2nds and a cap filling player. If I’m Pat Riley, I wait until the trade deadline on February 7th and see who gets too excited.
The next player is a big man with surfer hair that often tries to play like a sharpshooting Wayne Ellington.