Miami Heat: 5 intriguing trade ideas for Mike Conley and/or Marc Gasol

For better or worse, the Miami Heat have been one of the bigger buyers and sellers at the trade deadline every season since LeBron James left, but I am not too sure which way they will ever go each new-season.

The Miami Heat organization led-by, Pat Riley, has to decide if they should rebuild for the long-term, or push for the playoffs in the short-term, and I am not sure how long the 73-year-old is looking to do this back-and-forth with the Heat roster.

As we get closer to the February 7th trade deadline, the Memphis Grizzlies have been reported to want out of their monstrous deal with forward Chandler Parsons. However, there have not been many suitors for the injury-prone wing, as no one really wants to take on that contract with at least getting back a first round pick.

The Grizzlies have the 6th worst record in the league (19-30), walking a very fine line between being a mediocre 9-12 seed, or being a purposeful tanking team. The right answer to that question can be trifling, as the Heat are dealing with that themselves, as they have been for many years now (read our own Wes Goldberg illuminate those issues for Miami here).

However, the Heat do not possess the potential superstar that the Grizzlies have in Jaren Jackson Jr. (or Jaren, as Ben Golliver of the Washington Post calls him – subscription needed).

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The front office of Memphis had to look in the mirror this past week and ask themselves what the ceiling of this team will be with Mike Conley, Marc Gasol, and Jaren for the next few seasons, and it doesn’t look like the reflection appeared to be anything pretty, according to Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN.

"“For the first time, the Memphis Grizzlies will begin listening to trade offers for their franchise stars, center Marc Gasol and guard Mike Conley, league sources told ESPN.” “The Grizzlies will be pursuing typical deal packages in dealing veteran stars, including some combination of young talent, draft picks and salary-cap relief, sources said. The advanced age of Gasol (33) and substantial money owed Conley (likely $67 million through 2021) could make it difficult for Memphis to get substantial trade packages in return.”"

Memphis seems to have done it, they pulled the trigger with Woj and let it be known around the world that they will not continue to teeter around success, rather they will make a leap of faith around Jaren for the foreseeable future, putting their two veteran hometown heroes on the trade block.

Can you blame them? With the contracts of Gasol, Conley, and Parsons weighing heavily on this team in terms of future success, cutting that cap while rebuilding around the 2nd best rookie out of the 2018 NBA Draft class (thus far) seems like a pretty understandable decision.

And as previously stated, the Heat are being led by a 73-year-old in Riley, who desperately wants a championship team. Miami is currently the 7th seed but just could have easily been the 4th seed in the Eastern Conference if it wasn’t for an early-season injury to All-Star Goran Dragic. “The Dragon,” is likely to be back by the Feb. 7th trade deadline, so making a move for Gasol and/or Conley could make sense if Riley wants to win now, again, for better or worse.

But the “for better or worse” begs an important question, there is something to be said about how complacency can ruin a team’s foundation, meaning that rebuilding a team sounds fun if this was a video game, but in the real world, when you take enough punches each year as a rebuilding team, you could have serious internal issues for years to come (does Phoenix, Atlanta, and Orlando come to mind?).

Albeit, teams like the Philadelphia 76ers and Sacramento Kings are showing signs of said-tanking working, but I am not too sure the Heat will have a solid GM by the end of said-tank, as once again, the Heat are being led by a 73-year-old that could call it quits any second.

Therefore, I will tackle the ideas of trade moves for Conley and Gasol in this column and I hope you can stomach these moves, as they will be to help Miami get over the hump for the next few seasons.

All trade ideas are contractually legal and have gone through the ESPN Trade Machine.