Miami Heat: Appraising the trade value of the Heat roster

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MIAMI, FL – APRIL 9: The Miami Heat celebrates during the game against the Philadelphia 76ers on April 9, 2019 at American Airlines Arena in Miami, Florida. 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. Mandatory Copyright Notice: Copyright 2019 NBAE (Photo by Issac Baldizon/NBAE via Getty Images) /

The Miami Heat have a roster full of bloated contracts, making any trade this summer difficult. We’ll assess the overall trade value of the whole roster.

The Miami Heat enter the 2019 NBA Draft and free agency period coming off a season in which they were the most expensive team in league history to not make the playoffs. So expensive, in fact, that the organization made roster cuts late in the season before they were mathematically eliminated from playoff contention just in order to drop below the luxury tax.

As the roster stands right now, the Heat enter the summer with a staggering $141 million in salary (assuming Hassan Whiteside picks up his 2019-20 player options), about $9 million over the luxury tax. Ownership will be invested in cutting salary simply to get below that mark, while improving the competitive level of the roster will be a separate but similarly important goal.

In the NBA, almost no deal is completely unmovable. Some contracts are simply so bad, however, that in order to find a suitor, other teams will require high-value draft picks or assets in order to take on that toxic contract.

We’ll evaluate the Miami Heat roster by position group and assess the trade value of each player, breaking down whether each has positive or negative value to other teams and thus could bring a positive return in a trade, or would require incentivization.

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