Miami Heat: Silva case illustrates how Riley plays chess in a checkers league

The Miami Heat are a world-class organization and for many reasons. While the reputation and winning history is one thing, their savvy approach is another.

The Miami Heat are an organization that not only rings bells in the NBA as far as being one of the most respected for how they go about their business, but they also are just as renown amongst other pro sports franchises. Whether it be the expectations that they have of their players, a reputable characteristic that often times precedes itself with incoming players or their abilities to get the most out of the least, they are amongst the best ran franchises in North American sports.

While the symbiotic coalition of Micky Arison, Pat Riley, and Erik Spoelstra are at the forefront of what makes the Heat who they are, their practices and procedures are also among the best in the business. Specifically, when it comes to the nuances of building, maintaining, developing, or manipulating the talent within the confines of the rules of the league, there are none better than Pat Riley and co. Here is a case that vividly illustrates their supreme NBA savvy.

As we documented some time back, after seeing his performance in the preseason and to open the regular season, the Miami Heat had to find a way to convert the deal of rookie big man Chris Silva from a two-way contract(eligible to play 45 days with the big club, but mainly a G-League player) into that of a regular player. He has shown to be too valuable and useful thus far in his brief appearances for him not to be on the regular-season roster.

While we laid out how this might occur, with Pat Riley and the crew kickin’ the can down the road as far as possible as far as his “days” apart of the big club, to not only conserve the time they are theoretically already paying for as apart of his two-way deal, but to also lessen the load on the back end that will be the terms of a potential prorated regular-season contract, we didn’t consider that it would be taken this far.

In the above tweet from Ira Winderman of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, he details a maneuver that was executed by the Miami Heat. This is an example of the savviness being deployed and shown by the Heat organization to save themselves some time on his current deal, subsequently and ultimately along with a few dollars under the cap on a potential new deal as well.

What this does is decrease the amount of spendable cap room that they would need available to sign Silva to that regular deal when the time comes. It also inevitably allows them to be more flexible as far as what types of deals they could seek for Dion Waiters, meaning they could be less picky or finicky about what they could or could not take back. Here is another more recent tweet from Winderman that displays the same type of move.

It’s chess with Pat Riley and the crew, never checkers. They are always at least a half step ahead of the curve, the rule, and the rest of the league.

It takes knowing these things to be able to move as they do, but it also takes the experience and kahunas to use certain loopholes to the best of your ability. The Godfather, most appropriate, is built for just that. Keep doing what you do Riles, especially if it continues to garner the results we have seen thus far this season.