What should the surging Heat do with Goran Dragic?
It’s the dog days of the NBA season, and for the most part, teams have settled into their patterns and roles. The Warriors are devouring worlds, the Spurs are chugging along in quietly dominant Spursian fashion, the Cavaliers are trying to pull out of their annual midseason lull, the Clippers are battling injuries, and the tiers in each conference have more or less laid themselves bare.
Then there’s the Miami Heat. A team that looked completely misfit and lost for the first half of the season - a team that hit the 41-game mark on pace for 22 wins - morphed into a juggernaut virtually overnight. From Dec. 16 to Jan. 13, they went 2-13; since then, they're 13-2. In less than a month, the Heat went from being two games clear of the NBA's worst record to two games out of a playoff spot. Their 13-game winning streak came against relatively soft competition, but still featured victories over the likes of the Warriors and Rockets.
You could say they salvaged their season, or you could say they torched their lottery odds. The team that started 11-30 was on the fast track to a top-three draft pick. This team is headed toward the double whammy of just missing out on the playoffs and getting stuck in the late lottery.
The question now is, how does the team's recent hot streak change its calculus with the trade deadline approaching? Specifically, what does it mean for Goran Dragic? On one hand, it seemed to make more sense for the Heat to deal Dragic and go all the way into the tank when they were already puttering around the cellar. On the other hand, it might make more sense for them to do it now, when they arguably need to find a way to get worse.
Let's take a look at their options.
The case for standing pat
For starters, the NBA is stuffed to the gills with quality point guards, so it's safe to assume the market for Dragic isn't quite consistent with what he's actually worth to the Heat. He's been great, and could help out a number of teams, but the role and skill set he offers aren’t exactly at a premium.
The Heat are already out their first-rounders in 2018 and 2021, the cost of acquiring Dragic from the Suns at the 2015 trade deadline. Recouping that value alone is no sure thing, and even if they do, that would essentially leave them back where they started, minus Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh, which would be a tough pill to swallow.
As the Magic just showed, there’s no sense shutting the door on a potentially beneficial trade just because it makes a previous trade look worse. But the Heat are in a bit of a different position than the Magic, since they’re nearer to playoff contention and more closely resemble a win-now team in terms of age and roster makeup. This seemed to be their thinking, as they reportedly showed interest in Serge Ibaka before the Toronto Raptors acquired him from Orlando.
Dragic and Hassan Whiteside are both fringe All-Stars in their primes; the supporting cast has proven capable; and if and when they negotiate a buyout with Bosh, they could have max cap space this summer. Between Pat Riley’s history of attracting marquee free agents, the tax-friendly warm-weather haven that is Miami, and the blockbuster class of players about to hit the market, it’s well within the realm of possibility that the Heat double down on their win-now approach and snag another star (or two).
Triggering a rebuild by trading Dragic now could torpedo that possibility.
The case for trading Dragic
The surest way for the Heat to re-establish themselves as a player at the top of the draft lottery would be to remove their offensive engine from the equation. Even as they’ve surged up the standings, they’re still just 3.5 games clear of the Magic, who would have the fourth-best lottery odds if the season ended today. A Dragic trade could well send the Heat on another late-December-like slide that puts them back on track for a top-five pick.
Yes, the NBA being so flush with point-guard depth may depress Dragic’s market, but a handful of teams - the Bulls, Bucks, Knicks, 76ers, Nuggets, and Kings - would still have reason to be interested in his services, and a few of them have assets to burn.
Dragic is averaging a career-high 20.3 points per game, shooting a career-best 44 percent from 3-point range, and is signed through at least 2019 on a team-friendly, pre-cap-boom contract. Over the past 15 games he's been straight-up ridiculous, averaging 23.2 points while shooting 54.8 percent from the field and 52.6 percent from deep. It’s unlikely his trade value will ever be higher. Dealing him now would accomplish the twin feat of getting back to the bottom of the standings and recouping maximum value.
Dragic and Whiteside are in their primes, but nobody else on the roster is really ready to contribute meaningfully to a contending team in the next couple years, and a couple key supporting players in James Johnson and Dion Waiters will be free agents at season's end.
Trade Dragic, and Miami would still be able to build around Whiteside, Justise Winslow, Tyler Johnson, Josh Richardson, and whatever it can add in prospect capital in the deal. That’s maybe not the most inspiring foundation, but throw in, say, a top-six pick in a loaded draft this year, and it starts to look pretty solid. Another thing worth considering, painful as it may be: It would behoove the Heat to be bad again in 2018, since the pick they owe the Suns that year is top-seven protected.
The verdict
Ultimately, the Heat would probably prefer to wait until the offseason to try sort all this out; determine how good they actually are, see if they can ink a free agent, see how the trade market develops. But they also need to be wary of the potential opportunity that approach presents.
Missing out on a high draft pick this year may bite them in the long run. And the trade offers won't get better in the summer, when teams won’t have seeding battles or playoff pushes to help justify a bold move, and Dragic's production will likely have fallen off from where it's been the past couple months. If a deal is there to be made before the deadline, Miami should probably pull the trigger.
(Photos courtesy: Action Images)