Miami Heat: Grading the Wayne Ellington trade; paired with a farewell letter

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DETROIT, MI – JANUARY 18: Wayne Ellington #2 of the Miami Heat looks to the sidelines during the third quarter of the game against the Detroit Pistons at Little Caesars Arena on January 18, 2019 in Detroit, Michigan. Detroit defeated Miami 98-93. NOTE TO USER: User expressly acknowledges and agrees that, by downloading and or using this photograph, User is consenting to the terms and conditions of the Getty Images License Agreement (Photo by Leon Halip/Getty Images) /

Wayne Ellington Trade – Grade B

As previously stated, when the news surrounding Ellington being included in the Johnson/Anderson swap first dropped, so did my heart. But when looking at this move from Pat Riley under a microscope, pairing Ellington with Johnson was purely a good idea from a cap space perspective, in order to try and keep Micky Arison under the luxury tax.

Woj from ESPN, illustrated the cap woes below:

"“He (Tyler Johnson) has a 15 percent trade bonus valued at $1 million. The tax bill in Miami will drop from $9.7 million to $1.7 million. That figure could drop further if Kelly Olynyk misses out on his $1 million bonus for playing 1,700 minutes, which he is not on pace to do. Miami will create a $6.27 million trade exception with the deal, which Ellington must approve. Anderson has a cap hit of $20.4 million this season and $21.3 million in 2019-20, of which $15.6 million is guaranteed, with the remaining amount becoming fully protected if he isn’t waived by July 10.”"

Obviously the money here is a mess, but essentially the Heat will be saving a lot of cap space and are on pace to be within a couple hundred thousand dollars away from being below the luxury tax line. Apparently, even with the hope that Kelly Olynyk continues down this road of his current minutes played, the Heat will only be $176K away from the luxury tax line making this deal a solid grade of a B for me.

I quote the Heat as being $1.2M over the luxury tax line but, in practical reality, they’re probably more like $176K over, pending Kelly Olynyk’s $1.0M bonus for playing 1,700 minutes. He needs to average 24+ minutes over Heat’s final 30 games to achieve it.
— Albert Nahmad (@AlbertNahmad) February 6, 2019

Furthermore, as Albert Nahmad shows via a Tweet above, if Olynyk averages over 24 MPG for the remainder of the season, the Heat will go back to being $1.2 million over the luxury tax line. Unfortunately for Miami, Derrick Jones Jr. is out for 5 more weeks due to a severe knee injury, so big men (or lengthy wings) are currently needed. Moreover, Olynyk just got the starting nod next to Hassan Whiteside in the Heat’s past game vs. the Portland Trail Blazers and grabbed a hefty win, which could be the future for this starting lineup (however, Olynyk only played 19 minutes).

Ultimately, yes, a few 2nd round picks, or even a 1st round pick, would have been nice for the Heat, but being as cap heavy as Miami has been over the past few seasons, releasing some serious cap and freeing up the logjam at the guard position just makes sense.

Our next slide will detail our final words to Wayne Ellington, via a farewell letter from a enamoured fan of the “Man with the Golden Arm.”

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