Getty Luka Doncic looks on prior to a bout between his Dallas Mavericks and the Miami Heat.
Perhaps more than any GM, president or chief decision-maker in the NBA, Pat Riley is known for his uncanny ability to pluck A-listers from the trade and free-agent markets and bring them to his team. During his run as the Miami Heat‘s No. 1, he’s made star-grabbing moves for the likes of Shaquille O’Neal, LeBron James, Chris Bosh, Goran Dragic, Jimmy Butler and Kyle Lowry.
And while some of those acquisitions worked out better than others, you can’t argue with his track record of securing six trips to the NBA Finals and three championships for the South Beach faithful.
In the here and now, though, the Heat look to be farther from the promised land than they’ve been in years after dropping from first in the East after 82 games in 2021-22 to the No. 7 spot and the play-in tournament here in 2022-23. As such, fans and pundits alike are calling on Miami’s “Godfather” to make another big move this summer.
To that end, Luka Doncic’s name has been circulating on Heat Twitter as the Dallas Mavericks star and perennial MVP candidate’s situation in the Big D has suddenly become murky. For his part, though, one longtime league analyst believes that Riley’s most realistic star play may lie elsewhere.
CBS Sports: Heat May Be Just Short of the Pieces Needed to Make a Luka Doncic Trade, But Hope for a Big Move Remains
Like the Heat, the Mavericks were knocked off their perch in ’22-23 after making serious waves last season. In their case, though, the Mavs have already been eliminated from the postseason mix after having played in the Western Conference Finals last spring.
Given the incredible and unexpected drop-off, folks in Dallas are already getting worried that Doncic could request a move to greener grass, per ESPN’s Tim MacMahon.
With that in mind, CBS Sports’ Sam Quinn just dropped a feature ranking all 29 of the league’s teams outside of Dallas in terms of their ability to potentially pull off a trade prying Doncic from the Mavs. And while the Heat only came in 20th, Quinn did observe that the club may have just enough in its coffers to bring in a star from the tier just below that of Doncic:
The Heat could make a very interesting offer for a lower-level star. Tyler Herro and three first-round picks might get them someone like [Damian] Lillard or [Bradley] Beal. It isn’t enough for Doncic. Miami would probably need to either put Bam Adebayo on the table or flip Jimmy Butler for more elsewhere to realistically get into that conversation, and at that point, the Heat just wouldn’t have enough left over to convince Doncic to stay.
Heat Have Been Linked to Bradley Beal More Than Once Over the Years
Beal’s name has come up in Heat trade chatter several times over the years. Most recently, it was the South Florida Sun-Sentinel’s Ira Winderman who reported on the club potentially kicking the tires on a deal for the Washington Wizards star.
“I have been told that if the Heat do not move Kyle Lowry at Thursday’s NBA trading deadline that the Heat very much will return to the mindset of an offseason run at Kevin Durant or Bradley Beal, should either express a desire to move on,” Winderman wrote in February.
Of course, Durant already landed with a new team in Phoenix, but Beal could still be moved in the months to come depending on how he and the Wizards feel after missing the playoffs yet again.