Oladipo has eyed Miami for years now and it’s clear that he would love to be here. The Heat also need another scorer, which Victor Oladipo could solve. If the Heat would truly be interested in Andre Drummond if he was bought out, that would be one of the biggest pickups they can make. The Heat will need to be active on the trade market and buyout market if they want to truly contend this season. There are still many hurdles because Gay isn’t going to fix the team. It’s clear the Miami Heat need some help at the power forward position, which is what I touched on in a previous piece, so it would make sense that the team is looking at Gay or possibly his teammate LaMarcus Aldridge. Maybe, the Heat don’t feel the same way, but that’s what makes sense from an outside viewpoint when you are looking at the trade. He's got to tear everything down to get the team out of late-lottery purgatory.The deal can be done without Okpala, but if there are other teams involved, it would look to be okay to have him included. He's not trying to make the patient better, but to simply stop the patient from going downhill.
Since he took over in Denver, he's been performing triage on teams, trying to lop off the bad parts to stave off infection. We don't know how he would build a team around a star if he got one. We still don't know what Ujiri wants, long-term. This Heat-Spurs trade features Rudy Gay to Miami MaBrett Siegel Miami Heat, NBA Trade Rumors, San Antonio Spurs, Southeast Division, Southwest Division Comments Off Brad Penner-USA TODAY Sports The Miami Heat have been very mediocre this NBA season, but they have turned things around as of late and have won 10 of their last 14 games. Expect Ujiri to target more draft picks, but that could take years to get the kind of core he'll want. With a cornerstone from the draft, they'll have cap room to build slowly. Now the key for the Raptors will be to tank out and lose as many games as possible to reach the Andrew Wiggins sweepstakes. Acquire assets, trade liabilities, clear space and focus on flexibility. He never reached that point, because he left Denver before reaching that point.īut the model was always the same. In Denver, he traded high on Carmelo Anthony and brought in versatile assets and talented players which set him up for a potential trade for a star down the line. Ujiri has been placed in two situations in his time as a GM, in both Denver and Toronto, where he's been asked to clear a big contract for a high-isolation scoring forward and remake the team.
Gay's value to the Kings is much higher, who need to upgrade any talent they have, and can afford to gamble, especially with the prospect that Gay opts out in 2014.īut for the Raptors, it's just about removing the road blocks in front of Ujiri's ability to build the team he wants.Īnd that question, of just what he wants to build, is much harder to answer, and more important. In the range of things, getting a talented, high-assist-rate point guard, a tough veteran center, and a few wings with marginal value is great return on a high-usage, low-efficiency, costly small forward in Gay. Via Once again, Ujiri trades a star and starts over. (Only $1 million of Salmons' $7 million salary for next season is guaranteed.) With Gay's $19.3 million salary gone (Gay has a player option for next season), the Raptors cleared $12.3 million in cap room and flexibility. In sending Gay, Aaron Gray and Quincy Acy to the Kings for Greivis Vasquez, Patrick Patterson and Chuck Hayes, Ujiri took back only $7 million in guaranteed money for next season. The best player long-term is Jonas Valanciunas.) As Ken Berger of reports, the money saved here is not inconsequential: (The actual best player right now is DeMar DeRozan. It's moving what is considered to be the best player on roster, in terms of ability. 1 pick in Toronto.īut the deal made Sunday night to move Rudy Gay is a bigger deal. They took on dead room to save some money. He does everything pretty well, and has since expanded his value by playing some stretch four on Team USA and. Trading Andrea Bargnani last summer was simply a matter of prudence. Rudy Gay was once an inefficient scorer who has learned to play great team basketball. The team will have the same tendencies, the same culture, the same construct it did when you decided to blow it up. Otherwise it's still his team, and you're trying to reload. Any rebuilding project means tearing down the existing structure, and in the NBA, one immutable rule has always been true of a real rebuild: You must deal your best players and your biggest contracts. He's working to get rid of the team he doesn't. He's not woking to build the team he wants. Masai Ujiri's deals over the past six months haven't been about winning.