Ira Winderman: ‘A nickel more’ creates an era of change for Heat, but at what price?
· Yahoo Sports
MIAMI — Typically, the spirit of altruism is an after-the-fact sentiment when it comes to the transactional world of the NBA.
Understood.
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Still, in the days and now weeks since the Miami Heat completed the Giannis Antetokounmpo trade with the Milwaukee Bucks, both sides spoke of how throughout the process there was an attempt by Milwaukee to do right by a player who had done right for the franchise and the city for 13 seasons.
Bucks general manager Jon Horst said as much in his initial media session after the trade. Then, speaking in the wake of Giannis’ introductory media session Thursday at Kaseya Center, Heat president Pat Riley said of Horst, “I think at the end of the day, too, he wanted to allow Giannis to go where he wanted to.”
So, to recap: Giannis wanted the Heat, as he effusively stressed time and again during Thursday’s introductory gala; Horst wanted to get Giannis to a desired destination; the Heat negotiating team sensed Horst wanted to get Giannis to a preferred landing spot.
This was not Heat v. Joe Cronin in the 2023 offseason, when no matter what the Heat offered the Portland Trail Blazers as Damian Lillard’s preferred landing spot, the Blazers’ general manager showed no allegiance to Lillard’s desires, instead shipping him off to Milwaukee (oh, the irony).
So if the logic truly led to Miami as the Giannis end game for all involved … then why everything, including the kitchen sink, thrown into the deal?
As in Tyler Herro, Kel’el Ware, Jaime Jaquez and Kasparas Jakucionis.
As in Heat first-round picks in 2026, ’31 and ’33.
As in a first-round pick swap in 2030.
As in a second-round pick in 2033.
“As far as what we gave up, we gave up a significant price,” Riley acknowledged, as he stood off to the side by the stands at Kaseya Center, while Giannis did his one-on-one interview laps. “And he’s worth it — period. That’s how I look at it.”
Which is an inarguable way to look at it, Giannis’ presence at Kaseya Center as uplifting a moment as the Heat have experienced in years, arguably more meaningful than those against-all-odds NBA Finals in 2020 against the Los Angeles Lakers and 2023 against the Denver Nuggets.
Earlier, Riley had spoken how the Heat had stood on the cusp of a Giannis deal at the Feb. 5 NBA trade deadline. He was asked if the Heat falling into the lottery and winding up with the No. 13 pick was what sealed the deal, with the Bucks utilizing that pick last month to draft intriguing Tennessee forward Nate Ament.
“I really don’t know,” Riley said. “Probably, you know, adding a little extra to the deal.”
So No. 13 was thrown in when the deal was agreed to on June 22.
Because at that point, it was a matter of whatever it took to get it done.
“So was it a nickel more, a dime more, a quarter more, whatever it is,” Riley said. “But, you know, John Horst is a great GM.”
When you walk away with the offseason’s ultimate prize (with all due respect to Jaylen Brown and LeBron James) you can afford to be magnanimous.
But Jakucionis has the look of a prospect who could be special.
Ware, ironically, is what Riley says the Heat now need, a big man who can deter at the rim and convert 3-pointers on the other end.
Jaquez and Herro yet could fetch the Bucks additional draft capital.
And when the decade turns, no need to watch the NBA draft from a Heat perspective in the 2030s — because there won’t be one.
That is not to overstate what those four produced with the Heat, with a sum total of zero playoff-game victories over the past two seasons, only one over the past three.
But they also were laudable haul from the Heat’s draft wing, Adam Simon, Keith Askins, Eric Amsler and the rest of the scouting staff, especially in the void of a single top-10 selection.
“There’s a lot of upside there,” Riley said of the players cultivated by coach Erik Spoelstra and then dealt. “And we had long discussions about it. But that’s all. That’s also one of the things that I think you have to do to make a move like this, is you’ve got to have the players, and you’ve got to have the draft capital to do it. And we collected that, and once I felt we did, we almost made the deal in February, and that went down to the midnight hour.
“I wish them nothing but the best. They’re great young players, but we’re about now, and Giannis is about now, too.”
And, so, a nickel more, a dime more, a quarter more, for the ultimate payoff.
You can’t argue with the result.
But that doesn’t mean the form of payment can’t also be debated.
As it will for years.
As Giannis plays deeper into his 30s.
“Coach Spo and his staff, they’re off the charts when it comes to making players better. They just are, and so it was hard,” Riley said of parting with so much youthful talent, none of the players sent out over 26, two of them 22 or younger. “It was hard to make that decision. But once you make it, you go full forward with it.
“So we did the right thing at the right time, I think.”
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