The Miami Heat need help. NBA trade season should offer no shortage of options for roster reinforcements. But the higher the Heat aim—and given their struggles against good teams, they should be shooting for the stars—the more painful the trade cost becomes.
The Heat have just two first-round picks to offer, meaning they'd likely need to pull from their young core to land one of Pat Riley's preferred whales. And that means this is a perfect time to plot out the lay of the land by ranking Miami's five most coveted young players by their perceived trade value.
5. Pelle Larsson
On one hand, this feels low, because Larsson offers the kind of all-purpose utility that any winning team would covet. On the other, that versatility kind of covers up the lack of a signature skill, meaning it's hard to imagine why teams would specifically seek him out beyond a desire for general depth.
He is solid, sure, but he lacks special qualities, and while he lacks NBA experience (he was drafted in 2024), he's older than you might realize (he'll be 25 next month). He's someone who could get added to a deal as a sweetener, but he isn't anchoring any big deals on his own.
4. Nikola Jovic
A recent string of games might suggest Jovic deserves to rank higher, but that's kind of the point here. He'll show flashes of really high-end offensive play, but he has struggled to string them together.
Couple that inconsistency with shortcomings on the defensive end and occasional bouts with the injury bug, and he just can't be as valuable in a trade as his skill-size combo makes you want to believe. He is under contract through the 2029-30 season, but that's only helpful if other front offices feel his four-year, $62.4 million extension wasn't an overpay.
3. Kasparas Jakucionis
Unproven rookies are always tricky to gauge. There's some mystery-box appeal to them, but that only accounts for so much. At some point, other teams start wondering why the young player isn't finding his way to more floor time.
Jakucionis, the No. 20 pick in last summer's draft, isn't at that point yet, but it'd be helpful if he had either a longer leash or the kind of numbers demanding Miami to give him one. Instead, his brief glimpses at the NBA level have been fairly forgettable: 4.3 points on 33.3 percent shooting and 1.0 assists against 0.6 turnovers in 14.1 minutes per night.
2. Jaime Jaquez Jr.
No player on the Heat has elevated his value more this season than Jaquez. Honestly, few players across the entire Association have. His sophomore effort was such a letdown that it felt fair to wonder whether he might already be a lost cause coming into this campaign.
Clearly, that wasn't the case, as he has performed at a high enough level to warrant consideration for both Sixth Man of the Year and Most Improved Player honors. He'll get dinged a bit on the market for his age (25 in February) and lack of shooting (15-of-56 from range this season), but most suitors should still be drawn to his smarts, skills, and secondary shot-creation.
1. Kel'el Ware
You could argue where these rankings have the smallest gap between players, but it's obvious where the deepest divide is: You're looking at it. Anyone hoping to tempt the Heat with win-now support will try starting the conversation with a request for Ware, who's easily the most sought-after of the lot.
Because even if he can be inconsistent with both his production and perceived level of engagement, his ceiling still reaches so incredibly high that he wouldn't be worth giving up in anything less than a star swap. He's big, he's bouncy, he's impressively mobile for his size, and he's already in possession of the coveted unicorn blend of shot-blocking and floor-spacing.
He feels so far away from his full potential, and he's already a double-double machine with a 43 percent splash rate from three and the ability to dominate the interior on any given night. Stardom might not be guaranteed for him, but it's certainly more possible for him than any other member of this core.