The Miami Heat are one of the favorites to trade for Milwaukee Bucks star Giannis Antetokounmpo this summer. They have a real chance to bring him to South Beach. But they should try to do it in the next month, because they have a $16.8 million TPE that expires on July 7. It would be very useful to have that to help build out the team around Antetokounmpo.
Obviously, if the Heat trade for Antetokounmpo, they’ll be fine. They can figure it out from there. But having a $16.8 million trade exception to work with would certainly be helpful. It would be one more tool in their toolbox to help them build the best possible roster around Antetokounmpo.
So, if they can get a deal done in the next month, they’ll be able to use it.
Heat should trade for Giannis before TPE expires
Miami’s potential offer for Antetokounmpo would revolve around Tyler Herro, Kel’el Ware, and Jaime Jaquez Jr. Trading those players would seriously gut the Heat’s depth.
If they wanted to compete for a championship with Antetokounmpo and Bam Adebayo at the forefront, they would need to do some big-time work on the back end for depth purposes.
The Heat would be left with those two stars, Andrew Wiggins, Norman Powell (if they re-sign him in free agency), Davion Mitchell, Kasparas Jakucionis, Nikola Jovic, and Pelle Larsson.
That’s not a bad place to start, but the Heat would definitely still have some work to do if they wanted to compete with the best teams in the Eastern Conference next year.
They would have to add three-point shooting, perimeter defense, and big man depth, at the very least. And they wouldn’t exactly have a ton of players to play with on the trade market.
However, if they made a deal for Antetokounmpo in the next month, they could trade for a player using their $16.8 million trade exception, which they got in the Duncan Robinson sign-and-trade last summer.
There are plenty of solid players around the league who the Heat could fit into that TPE. Miami would be able to add a very solid depth piece to help their title chances next year.
But again, they would only be able to do it if they make haste in the Antetokounmpo sweepstakes. Since the TPE expires on July 7, they can’t use it after that.
The faster Miami trades for Antetokounmpo, the more likely they are to use their TPE.
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