Miami Heat: 10 moves for high-caliber players by the NBA trade deadline
By Trey Flynn
In this trade idea, the Miami Heat send Josh Richardson and Hassan Whiteside to the New Orleans Pelicans, in return for, Jrue Holiday and Nikola Mirotic.
This trade doesn’t happen unless the Pelicans send Anthony Davis elsewhere by the trade deadline. Furthermore, getting Whiteside as a replacement and Richardson on a mid-tier contract for a borderline All-Star is a fantastic move for the Pelicans, as they would be looking to rebuild without Davis.
Miami would get a better combo guard (although, huge deal) for the next 4 years to pair next to Winlsow, and also a much better-suited power forward than James Johnson in Nikola Mirotic. The hope for this deal is that if Miami is going to spend this much cap on average players, they might as well try and get upgrades, at all costs.
The starting lineup could differ, but ideally, you would like to see Dragic, Holiday, Winslow, Mirotic, and Bam. While that takes the ball out of Winslow’s hands, it does allow him to diversify his game more, as defenders would have to leave him alone in the corner a lot when they have a big job to do against the craftiness of Dragic and Holiday.
Albeit, I could see the Pelicans demanding Miami’s 2019 unprotected 1st, which Riley would possibly be reluctant to give up (I would do it).
Our next move gets another crafty guard that could seamlessly switch between both the 1 and 2.