Miami Heat Trade Deadline: Latest on Kyle Lowry, Power Forward and More
Could the Heat shake up the starting lineup midseason?
It’s not a secret that the Miami Heat’s roster remains unfinished. Go back to the offseason, when Pat Riley, Andy Elisburg and the rest of Miami’s front office spent precious time during the height of free agency monitoring Kevin Durant and Donovan Mitchell, only to see Durant return to Brooklyn and Cleveland out-bid the rest of the league for Mitchell. While the Heat allowed those situations to play out, other organizations were picking away at the free-agent class. By the time it was clear the Heat needed to move on from their superstar pursuits, options to improve the roster were thin.
Heat executives and players weren’t able to convince P.J. Tucker to wait, and Tucker signed a lucrative contract with the 76ers during the opening moments of free agency. Miami did manage to convince Caleb Martin not to sign a contract with a Western Conference contender, per league sources, and were able to bring him back on a three-year, $20.4 million deal. Victor Oladipo (two years, $18.2 million with a player option the second year) and Dewayne Dedmon (two years, $9 million with the second season non-guaranteed) were re-signed to above-market contracts.
It didn’t take a capologist to look at the deals Martin, Oladipo and Dedmon signed — all chunky enough to stack while still providing financial flexibility — and conclude that all three could be traded.
Despite missing the NBA Finals by one shot in May, the Heat declined to sign potential contributors such as T.J. Warren and Otto Porter Jr., which would have sent the team into the luxury tax, and instead left the 15th and final roster spot open with about $200,000 of room before the tax threshold.
Again, the intent was clear: If the Heat were going to pay the luxury tax (and trigger the costly repeater tax for next season), it was only going to be for a superstar player.
The strategy also allowed the Heat to run it back and re-evaluate the roster mid-season.
Zoom forward to the present with the Feb. 9 trade deadline two weeks away. The Heat are 27-22, sixth in the East, 2.5 games out of homecourt advantage in the first round but only a half-game ahead of a spot in the play-in tournament. After a wobbly start, the Heat have climbed to fourth in defensive rating but remain in the bottom five in offensive rating. They have a net rating, as of Friday morning, of 0.0 — perfectly average. The Heat are a notch below the Celtics, Bucks, 76ers, Nets and Cavaliers in the East.
Miami’s front office, then, faces a similar question as they did in the offseason: Make a marginal move that could solidify the roster but would cost valuable assets, or hold onto the limited assets they have and wait for the next superstar to hit the market?
Since the summer, a middle ground appears to have emerged involving Kyle Lowry.
One of the surprising developments through the first half of the season has been the offense shifting away from Jimmy Butler and Lowry’s bully-ball stylings and leaning further into the Tyler Herro-Bam Adebayo two-man game. Herro and Adebayo form one of the most efficient pick-and-roll partnerships in the NBA.
When the Heat trailed the Celtics by double-digits earlier this week, coach Erik Spoelstra implored Herro and Adebayo to work together to erase the deficit. The Heat ended up winning the game, with Herro finding Adebayo on the roll for the game-winning shot. The offense revolves around them now.
While Butler has found his place in the offense as a threat in the dunker spot and off-ball cutter who will still find pockets of the game to run the offense, Lowry has become little more than a bystander. His usage rate is the lowest it’s been since his rookie 2006-07 season and he’s shooting just 33.5% on 3s.
It should be no surprise, then, that Lowry has been mentioned in trade rumors. Several league insiders have floated the idea of sending Lowry to Minnesota for D’Angelo Russell. Lowry would provide leadership to Minnesota’s offense while Russell, who will become a free agent this summer, would give the Heat short-term shot-making and long-term flexibility.
However, according to NBA insider Marc Stein, the Timberwolves are hesitant to take on Lowry’s contract, which will pay him $29.7 million next season. That could be posturing, but it also could have something to do with the Timberwolves’ improved play and the fact that they may want to revamp things this summer after a disappointing first season with Rudy Gobert.
There’s another, perhaps more realistic option: The Clippers.
There have been multiple reports that the Clippers are looking for point guard help. Reggie Jackson has at times found himself out of the rotation, John Wall hasn’t found his footing and the team recently started using wing player Terance Mann at point guard. Lowry won a championship with Clippers star Kawhi Leonard in Toronto and could help organize an offense that often appears to lack a plan of attack.
According to league sources, the Clippers would entertain offers that packaged some combination of Marcus Morris Sr., Luke Kennard, Jackson, Wall and Robert Covington in order to upgrade the point guard position.
While the Clippers have also been tied to Utah’s Mike Conley and Toronto’s Fred VanVleet, the asking price for them will be significantly more — and likely include draft picks and/or young players that the Clippers don’t have — than what Lowry would cost.
Sending Lowry to L.A. for Morris Sr. and Jackson, for instance, would give the Heat a starting power forward and backup point guard. With enough playmaking between Herro, Adebayo and Butler, Miami wouldn’t need a traditional point guard in the starting lineup. The rotation could look something like this:
G: Herro / Jackson
G: Oladipo / Vincent
F: Butler / Strus
F: Morris Sr. / Martin
C: Adebayo / Robinson*
(*Adding Dedmon into the deal would give the Heat enough cap space to promote Orlando Robinson from his two-way contract to the 15-man roster.)
However, the Heat are five games over .500 for the first time this season and Lowry this week scored nine-straight points in the fourth quarter to help the Heat beat the Pelicans. It would make sense if Miami opted to see this season out and re-evaluate in the offseason.
It also stands to reason that the front office would consult with Butler, the Heat’s undisputed leader who has described Lowry as one of his best friends, before making any trade that sent Lowry away.
But the offseason might be too late. Russell will be a free agent and Minnesota won’t have matching salary with which to acquire Lowry. The Clippers by then could be less desperate and have other options to reshape the team. If the Heat decide to move on from Lowry, now might be the best time to make that happen.
The Heat declined to shake up the roster last summer. We’ll see if these last four months have changed their thinking.
More trade intel:
The Heat offered Duncan Robinson to the Suns for Jae Crowder, as the
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