Getty President Pat Riley of the Miami Heat addresses the media.
As the February 9 NBA Trade Deadline approaches, Miami Heat fans are waiting for their team to make a move. The eighth-place Heat have had some brutal injury luck so far this season. Jimmy Butler, Victor Oladipo, and Gabe Vincent have all missed at least 10 games so far for Miami. The surplus of injuries doesn’t mean that the team wouldn’t still benefit from swinging some sort of deal to improve their roster.
In a January 11 article for Bleacher Report, Greg Swartz highlighted a player that each NBA team should look to trade for before the deadline. Swartz pitched John Collins, of the Atlanta Hawks, as the player that Miami should be targeting for the next month or so.
“Collins is an ideal fit if the Atlanta Hawks would agree to help the Heat. He could solidify the position for years to come and make sure Jimmy Butler doesn’t have to defend fours in the playoffs,” he wrote.
Swartz mentioned that the Heat could use Collins’ shooting to create more space for Bam Adebayo in the paint. The $125 million star has been a respectable 3-point shooter throughout his career at 35.8%. However, this season he has taken a step back. Collins has knocked down just 22.9% of his attempts from distance for a struggling Hawks team.
Scoring as a whole has been more difficult for Collins in the 2022-23 campaign. He’s averaging just 13.3 points per game, which is down from 16.2 last season. With all of that being said, it may the perfect time for the Heat to buy low and poach the power forward from Atlanta.
Swartz added that getting healthy might not be good enough to compete in a now stacked Eastern Conference.
“While Miami has been bitten by injuries all season, simply counting on a healthy roster to make a run to the Finals isn’t enough, not in this improved East,” he concluded.
Heat Deal With Dewayne Dedmon Drama
A move for another frontcourt player is something that the Miami Heat could benefit from with rotation-center Dewayne Dedmon possibly on his way out. During the January 10 win over the Oklahoma City Thunder, Dedmon got into it with Head Coach Erik Spoelstra. He wound up getting himself ejected from the game after knocking a massage therapy gun onto the court.
Ira Winderman hinted that Dedmon’s time with the Heat may be coming to an end in a January 11 article for the Sun Sentinel.
“In many ways, the Heat had moved on from Dewayne Dedmon even before Tuesday night’s words with Erik Spoelstra and subsequent ejection,” Winderman wrote.
Dedmon is a team-low -93 over the course of the season for the Heat. His 5.9 points and 3.7 rebounds per game aren’t exactly translating to wins.
Report Links Heat’s Kyle Lowry to Timberwolves
There was another Miami Heat related aspect to Swartz’s article. He listed Kyle Lowry as the top target for the Minnesota Timberwolves.
“Lowry would be a perfect fit, as the 36-year-old brings 107 games worth of playoff experience and a championship ring to the table while still playing at a solid level,” Swartz wrote. “The Heat have used him way too much (35.0 minutes per game), while Minnesota would only need Lowry to serve as a table-setter and leader next to Karl-Anthony Towns, Anthony Edwards and Rudy Gobert.”
This isn’t the first time Lowry has been linked to Minnesota this season.
Back on December 15, a report surfaced that Miami had shown interest in Minnesota Timberwolves guard D’Angelo Russell.
Darren Wolfson of SKOR North was first to report the Heat’s interest in the former No. 2 overall pick.
“I’m told that the Miami Heat are showing some trade interest, just a little bit, in D’Angelo Russell of the Wolves,” Wolfson said on KSTP, a Minnesota television station.
The move would be yet another way for Miami to get off of paying the final year of Lowry’s contract next season. Russell is only under contract until the end of the 2022-23 campaign, allowing the Heat to dodge the luxury tax going forward.