Miami Heat: Could the Heat trade for a superstar like Blake Griffin?

The regular season is over and playoffs are upon us. This is also the time of year when lottery teams get to plot their course of action. Could the Miami Heat’s course involve trading for a superstar like Blake Griffin?

As we enter the offseason for the Miami Heat, it’s speculation time for a team without a clear path to make substantial improvements. The Heat are laden down with a number of bloated contracts, but they have their own draft pick in the 2019 draft and a handful of young players on cheap and rookie scale contracts. Could that be enough to swing a deal for a superstar like Blake Griffin of the Detroit Pistons?

Zack Buckley of Bleacher Report hypothesized about such a blockbuster move. Buckley’s proposition is based on the Pistons desiring to change direction just a year and a half after acquiring him via trade from the Los Angeles Clippers. It also derives significant input from a Detroit Free Press piece by Vince Ellis from around the trade deadline when the Pistons were on the outside of the playoffs looking in, and likely more inclined to make moves at the top of their roster than they are now.

In this piece, Buckley suggests a package including Kelly Olynyk, Josh Richardson and Derrick Jones Jr. might be enough to pry Blake Griffin away from the Pistons. In order to consummate such a deal, however, the Miami Heat would need to include more salary in order to satisfy league requirements, and the Pistons would almost certainly require the Heat to include a number of high-value draft picks to even consider moving on from Griffin.

Including Dion Waiters would make salaries work, but the Pistons would be adding almost $3 million in 2019-20 salary at a time when they would likely be hoping to cut money from the books rather than add salary.

Unfortunately for both Buckley and the Heat, however, it’s unlikely the Pistons would be interested in moving on from Blake Griffin after the best season of his career for a package that centers around Josh Richardson, Kelly Olynyk and what would likely be a future mid-to-late first-round pick, considering Griffin would significantly raise the floor for the Heat in the future and diminish the value of any outgoing draft pick.

There may be blockbuster trades out there for the Heat, but this Blake Griffin deal surely won’t be one of them.