Thus far, the Miami Heat have to be coined one of the offseason’s biggest losers.
Aside from re-signing 📖a couple of role players and adding shooter Alec Burks, things have been awfully quiet in South Beach. The team also lost reliable rotation player Caleb Martin, who departed for the Philadelphia 76ers on a four-year, $35.0 million deal.
All of this comes after a rocky start to the summer, as well. The team suffered a gentleman’s sweep in the first round of the playoffs, leading front office leader Pat Riley to deliver a brutally honest press conference. Riley and refused to commit to an extension for the superstar. Now, Butler’s long-term future in Miami feels like a legitimate question, as does the overall trajectory of the franchise.
Nonetheless, the team’s underwhelming summer doesn’t appear to be by design. Miami struck out on one of their desired free-agent targets for the second year in a row, . The former front office leader turned analyst confirmed on Thursday that Miami was very much in on DeMar DeRozan.
“Heat fans want more. They want more. They see what Boston did last year; they see what New York has done. They saw what certainly Philadelphia [has done] in far of loading up here. But what else can you do? They’re delimited in their draft picks they can send out,” Marks said. They would have loved to get DeMar DeRozan. They tried as heck to get DeMar DeRozan. Nobody wanted Duncan Robinson, no offense. They had one first-round pick to trade.”
Miami was mentioned alongside the Sacramento Kings as showing the most interest in the days leading up to DeRozan’s eventual signing. Alas, there were major questions about how they would be able to pay the six-time All-Star due to limited cap flexiblity. Moving Duncan Robinson could have helped a lot, but Marks states that interest around the league simply wasn’t there. Could the Bulls have found a way to take on the shooter? Sure, but we all know the goal was to avoid the tax.
Not to mention, if the only upside to taking Robinson is to possibly trade him down the road (assuming Miami wasn’t forking over limited draft capital), the fact nobody appeared to want the 30-year-old right now isn’t a great sign.
Doing business with the Kings clearly turned out to be the more desirable path for all parties. And that sure says a lot about where Miami currently stands. While it’s hard to ever rule out Playoff Jimmy and a DPOY candidate (Bam Adebayo), the Heat’s path toward keeping up with the East’s best is becoming hazier by the day.
With that in mind, I can’t help but wonder if we could see the front office begin to panic. I know that isn’t typically in the Miami Heat’s DNA, but we also haven’t seen them drop this far down the totem pole in quite some time. So might they be the No. 1 candidate to make a surprise trade over the next few months? And might that open a new door for Zach LaVine?
I’m simply wishful thinking here, but LaVine’s fit in Miami isn’t the worst. The team would likely need a more traditional facilitator to connect two high-volume scorers, but Butler has long been a willing playmaker. LaVine’s dynamic 3-point shooting and off-ball activity could be a perfect tool for the creative Eric Spoelstra. And he would undoubtedly raise the ceiling of an offense that has finished 25th and 21st over the last two seasons, respectively. For a team that was previously interested in Damian Lillard, LaVine can check some of the same boxes.
Miami would also have the defensive foundation to help cover up some of LaVine’s shortcomigns. Who knows, Spoelstra might also be the perfect coach to get some of that Olympic-level defense out of the two-time All-Star.
Look, I recognize that LaVine isn’t the most obvious candidate for “Heat Culture.” The fact we also haven’t heard many previous ties between the two parties doesn’t bode well for what Miami thinks of the 29-year-old. But, hey, thoughts can always change, especially when the reality of another season begins to set in.
