Miami Heat offseason series: Kevin Durant, again? | Five on the Floor

Miami Heat offseason series: Kevin Durant, again? | Five on the Floor

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Prize pix is legal in the state of Florida and you can play up to six players together. Again the flex plays it’s all there. So use the code five fibe. And now today’s episode. [Music] Mercy, luxurious heat nation. Yeah. Mercy go down the gang. Y on the floor. Ride for my dogs. Where is the thing? You can check the score. Hustle hard. Couple scars wearing bubble frog kept the floor plan got it all van y’all seen the block stop with one hand and pat it up. Welcome to five on the floor a daily insider show on the Miami Heat and the NBA featuring Ethan Skolnick, Greg Sander, Alex Toledo, Brady Hawk, and others from the Five Reason Sports Network. Also, make sure to subscribe to Off the Floor for the most heat anywhere. Right, welcome back to Five on the Floor. Here’s today’s floor plan. I’m Ethan Skolnick. You can follow me at Ethan J Skolan at Five Reason Sports. I got Greg Sander. You can follow him at Greg Savander. Check out recent episode that I did with our guy Digital Adele. We got into uh the idea of if you’re not going to end up extending Tyler Hero, do you consider trading him? So yes, we have started that cycle again. We’re restarting another cycle. It’s 2016 or it’s 2022 or whatever. It’s two it’s it’s a year that starts with 2000. Miami Heat may be interested in Kevin Durant. Uh we talked about this in the off not the offseason but at the trade deadline that he had inquired about Durant. um basically got information that if they had traded uh Jimmy to Golden State initially that the Warriors because they didn’t really want Jimmy initially, they were going to try to flip him to Phoenix for Durant, but of course it got out that uh Durant really didn’t want to go to Golden State. And so that was the pivot that led to the Heat and Golden State re-engaging about Butler a little bit later with the deal that ended up happening. And um and then basically uh Durant stayed put. Um Phoenix kept sliding out of the playin, ended up firing their coach, Mike Benhoer. Didn’t work out very well with him there. They’ve made front office changes. James Jones not really the GM or running the show anymore, although he really wasn’t last year. Uh the owner is, but someone was promoted. and uh Bartlestein, Mark Bartlestelestein’s son who’s in their front office is still there uh in more I guess more of a business advisory role. Not really sure. Anyway, Phoenix’s his issues are not really the Heat’s issues except that when the Heat reen engaged with Durant uh with the Suns about Durant because of that they were they were speaking to the Suns about possibly you know facilitating some kind of a deal that could have gotten Jimmy to Phoenix another way even not through Golden State. And so the Heat were basically as they found out about everything that was going on like okay well we’ll inquire about Durant. So they inquired about Durant who had an excellent season by the way at least offensively. And when they inquired about Durant um they my understanding is that they offered uh Jimmy’s contract. So sort of problem for problem at that stage uh plus Nicole Yoic and a first round pick. Um Matt Ishbia the owner who was sort of handling this directly and incessantly. I asked for everything else. Um, so he wanted uh I at the very least I know where uh Yovic drafts draft picks, swaps, all kinds of other stuff. So the Heat were like thanks but no thanks. Maybe we’ll revisit this in the future. Um it does seem like there is a drum beat now towards this being revisited and I’m I’m talking about it’s mostly seems to be coming from the media but it’s just with the Heat’s inclinations on Durant before Greg it would seem that they would they would make this kind of a push again if the price is to their liking and that’s where I went on a podcast with Yasi Goslin uh who does a lot of cap work and he may come on with us again. He’s been on with us before. He just doesn’t think the price is going to be that high. He doesn’t think there are going to be that many teams that are really out there for Durant. Houston has been talked about. We’re recording this before we know the result of the Golden State Houston game seven. That may force Houston or make Houston decide that they want to trade more of their their wealth of young young players um to try to get someone like KD um and and try to expedite their own process. Um and we know that we’ve heard that Durant has interest in Houston and and a reporter named John Gamaddero uh known as Gambo out in Phoenix who’s been very on top of these things has sort of telegraphed Durant to Houston for a long time. But if Houston’s not interested, Yasi doesn’t really see a lot of other teams that would be. It has to be a mutual fit. Has to be an organization that Durant respects. And it also has to be an organization that has use for KD. And I guess the question starts here before we get into what the specifics of this might be. Do the Miami Heat at this stage where they are losing not by their last two games of the playoffs by 92 points and winning just 37 games this season. Are they should they even be in the Kevin Durant business at all if they’ve talked about not wanting to manage aging stars? That’s the burning question. And I think a lot of the more cynical or um I guess they’d say that they’re realistic uh minded fans are saying to themselves, if you added Kevin Durant to this mix, are they really that much? I mean, they’d be better. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not crazy here. But would they be that much better? That’s the question. What what I would say is that I think as a shortterm because Durant’s, you know, coming up on being in his final year of his contract, you know, there’s an interesting twist to this Durant stuff in that if he were to get traded on draft night, it would be this league year, but you maybe they pre-arrange a deal that gets done after the league year changes. it changes how much money needs to go out for him basically uh in a trade because he goes from 51 to about 55 million in the last year of his deal. I think that there’s maybe something too that there’s going to be a lot of people I think more players than ever are going to be available for trades. They’re go they’re going to be teams that are looking to shake things up. And if there’s enough great players on the block, maybe Kevin Durant’s value comes down a little bit because guy teams with more assets will be focused on Giannis for instance, or if it’s John Morant, for instance. I I don’t know. I think the Durant to Houston part of it is tough because it it basically boils down to yes, I think the Heat are going to be interested in Kevin Durant, but it may be out of their control even if they’re willing to part with let’s say the contracts that match Mo because you mentioned him earlier and you know the 2025 Golden State pick and one other future first round pick. Even if they’re willing to trade all of that, which two first round picks is a lot for Durant at this stage, Houston may be able to just, you know, kind of move ahead of that offer really easily. So that’s why even though I think they’re interested, it’s just you have to kind of uh I guess be a little cautious that they could actually get it done. Well, let’s look at it from both sides. All right. From Durant’s side, before we go get to the Heat, would he be interested in playing for the Heat at this stage? We know he respects Bolstra. We know he has a relationship with Bam. We know that uh, you know, Miami would be an attractive place for him. He has spent a lot of time down here in the past. Okay. uh we know he’s aware of what the Heat have done with some aging players in the past, but also this team does not look like a contender. Um and I guess the question is if you had him hero and Bam, is there enough that you could put around it to make you a contender? Um we know Orlando’s going to kind of go more allin this off season. Indiana still looks formidable. Detroit’s going to get better. Boston may sell off Cororzingis or Drew, but they’re still gonna have their top two probably Derek and probably Ter Derk White. Cleveland looks like what we just saw. I don’t think the Knicks are going away anytime soon. So, just in the Eastern Conference alone, are you really competing? Now, I guess the counter to this would be Durant seriously considered the Heat in 2016 even when really all they had on the roster at that time was a resigned Hassan Whiteside and Gordon Dragitch. I mean, there was no guarantee Dwayne was coming back. There was the possibility of bringing him back even with KD. Um, and there was some confusion that went into all of that, but the that didn’t end up happening. So, really, I mean, you’re saying, okay, is a Ross with Bam and Hero better than one that was led by Goron and Hassan? I don’t know. I mean, I take maybe Goran over Tyler, but it’s it’s a push, I think. And then, um, and then you’re looking at Hassan and Bam. Okay, Bam is better. But here’s the problem. At that stage, Kevin Durant was nine years younger and could lead it. Now, there’s the question of how many games he’s going to play. His numbers are still elite. I mean, his his offensive numbers are elite elite. His mid-range numbers in particular, but he’s not the rim threat that he was. Um, and he’s not quite the consistent defender that he was. I always thought he was an underrated defender, but I don’t know that that’s the case anymore. So, I I guess that’s the issue on his part. Does he look at this situation and say I can win there and does that matter? I guess I I think that that’s a reasonable question that there’s probably going to be a team that looks closer, i.e. Houston, that can get involved in this and just inevitably that’s it’s more attractive. But there is scenarios where if other teams go and get other players that become available, maybe Durant does land on Miami. And the part of it that I think will get interesting, and you alluded to it a little bit with how close you get up to the first apron or the second apron, and if you basically convert your expiring contracts to Kevin Durant, there’s going to be question marks on can you pay DaVon Mitchell what he were to maybe get on the restricted free agent market. Um, all of the implications that go with, you know, being up against the aprons. I I just think to your point about could you put enough around them, it’s a it’s a valid question to ask and I think that from Durant’s perspective, there’s probably going to be some other team that looks closer, but I could see all parties involved talking themselves into giving it a shot. I mean, Spo talked about how, you know, they’re rational to a sense, and I think that they could probably be that way in this uh, you know, scenario as well. Well, the other question becomes, do you know if you don’t want to manage aging stars, like what do you feel the management of KD will be? Because it’s not like managing Jimmy Butler, you don’t have the the personality issue there. I know not everybody loves KD, but he is what he is. He says what he says. He really just wants the ball and go home. Like that that’s really it. Okay. Um, and you know, he’s obviously sensitive about the stuff about legacy and winning the championships in Golden State, and that’s always going to carry forward with him. Uh, so I don’t know how much he cares about, you know, advancing deep in the playoffs and being seen as the reason for it at this stage. Um, I think it would have been different if he came in 16, he led that Miami team somewhere in his prime. He would have gotten a lot more credit for it than he did with the Warriors. But I I guess that’s the thing, like managing him, I really comes into managing his health. that he has played more lately, but there have been some catastrophic injuries along the way. And even though his game ages well, like we just talked about, Bosch’s game ages well, he’s drifted further from the basket. Is it going to age well defensively? Is it going to age well in terms of the games that he needs off? Right. And then hero and bam, we’ve seen can’t really carry this thing to wins when somebody else is out. So, if you’re if it almost seems like a two-year process to kind of build the roster here. Mhm. And then you’re counting on him for another year and he’s going to want another extension. So, it’s a shortcut like Shaq was like, sorry to interrupt you, but it’s a shortcut like Shaquille was, but it’s like, can you build enough around them that fast to actually fortify it and go and and get a championship? It’s a major question mark. Well, and the also thing with Shaq was a shortcut. Yes, you gave up Butler, you gave up ODM, you gave up Brian Grant’s contract, but you also had at that time uh an emerging Dwayne Wade. You didn’t know what he was going to become, and Shaq helped unleash some of that, but you had you had that there. And Shaq was younger than KD. Now KD’s probably playing at at least as high a level or close to it as Shaq did at that time, especially because there were the concerns about Shaq’s availability, Shaq’s laziness, all of that. They kind of got the last great Shaq season. uh which was uh 0405 and then 0506 was not a great season and and Dwayne really took the reigns there particularly in the postseason. Sha missile at times. So I guess those are some of the questions that you’ve got to consider because as I look at it I’m like okay you know this has been a fit and a passion project for a long time. It seems like there’s mutual interest. Uh it doesn’t seem like there’s going to be a lot of competition for it. So let’s just get to the other side of this and we’ll quickly going to do this a lot more over the uh course of the summer. We’ll quickly go through what exactly uh can can be done here, what you would be willing to do. Before we do, want to mention a great sponsor of the Five Reason Sports Network. It’s our friends over at All Pro Construction Builders. They build things pretty quickly. What they do is they build protection for your house. If you live in South Florida, you know it’s always hurricane season. It’s always around the corner. Quality is their specialty. They pro protect your home or business uh from hurricanes and storm damage. They give you free estimates regardless of where you come from, but if you come from us, you also get 5.5% off your order. if you mentioned five reasons or five on the floor. So go to 305484-44429. That’s 304 305, excuse me, 305. I should know that one. 3054844429 or allprobuilders.com and mention us to Danny. Um, okay, let’s go through it. Uh, I’ll just you just say yes or no here. If it ends up being Wiggins’s contract, Duncan’s contract, and I I and I’m not doing all the matches here. You know better than I, but I’ll go through it at some point. Wiggins contract, Dun Duncan’s contract, which again is partial guaranteed, which may have some value to other teams because you can that can clear some money, which Phoenix may want to do because they’re they they they’re so far over uh in terms of luxury taxes and all that. Uh and they say a first round pick, maybe a pick swap, um and maybe Yoic. Are you comfortable doing that? I think so. I I think that that’s probably if we were to forecast the kind of move that Miami would be interested in. I hate that I’m saying that like they’ve kind of uh they’ve looked for these opportunities that that show value. And I think that just from this perspective compared to some of the other ransoms that Kevin Durant has gone for for I think that it probably makes sense if you had to throw in the two picks. You’re giving up Nico. You mentioned Duncan. So, there’s some salary cap uh relief there with the non-G guarantee. It all makes sense from that perspective. There’s other ways to get there with just expiring contracts, too, if that’s where the Suns want to go. I think that it’s just a matter of the picks, and I think that fans are going to ask themselves, how many picks is it worth? To me, it feel two feels right. Maybe yeah that means that it’s gonna actually cost three because um I have heat bias uh you know built in but it feels like two is the right number. All right and if you extract some of it will depend on protections too but if you extrapolate this further if you were to make a trade like that then they essentially meant because you’re swapping out Wiggins that you got Durant for Jimmy’s contract. Okay, you got Durant, DaVon Mitchell, Kyle Anderson. If you keep DaVon Mitchell, right, for Jimmy’s contract, Yovic, last year of Duncan’s contract and picks, keeping on would not be a guarantee. If you if you were Well, that’s the other issue. That’s the other issue. But I’m saying if you were to do that, I think most fans would say if that had been done at the deadline. Oh, hell yeah. I think most fans would have said yes. Right. Okay. So, let me throw the wrench in the works here. What about where? That’s a tough one. Um, I’m inclined to say that that’s probably the line that you shouldn’t cross. I’m sure that there’s going to be fans that disagree and say like, let’s just go for the Durant experiment. To me, there’s just something shortsighted about giving up at least a player that you’ve seen flashes of working next to Bam up front. You’re going to need that type of size. the whole league is shifting in that direction. You’re seeing it play out in these playoffs. I just I don’t like the idea of getting smaller along with getting older with the Kevin Durant move. So, to me, that’s probably where I would draw the line. Um there were years in the past where um you would be laughed at for asking the question about Kaware and and and Kevin Durant and that being a deal breakaker, but Durant is not that age. You know what I mean? he is uh in the twilight of his career and so that being considered I think you got to hold on where um I think so but I’ll say this uh I don’t know what they think internally about how the bam wear partnership is going to work yeah was kind of non-committal when when they asked him yeah so and with Spo’s history of this stuff and his inclination towards small ball and the fact that he yanked wear out of the last game and you know there are still some questions I think about motor and conditioning in addition to just strength which is the big thing that he seems focused on. Those things are all going to have to come together pretty quickly and you also have to figure out what kind of a team you can build with it because of the way that the two of them play together. You you really don’t want to rely on them for the spacing. So you have to find the spacing uh other ways. So I I think you know I think theoretically I say okay I’d like to keep where there is potential there. It is the way that the league is moving but also practically is this going to work if they’re keeping Bam. Have they really found the right guy next to him? And if that and can they build a roster around it and if they don’t think so then it may be okay we had the 15th pick in the draft and we basically incl which was where and we basically included that as a way to get KD. There’s also the other factor to consider and I and I’ll let you close. I you know they’ve sold their their tickets for next year. Like that’s not the problem here. But there’s also an enthusiasm deficiency that we’ve seen with the team that getting KD even if it’s an aging KD would at least temporarily fix. I mean it would certainly would help us. We know that. I don’t know. They don’t care about that. But in general, I mean it’s one thing to say you’re in a transition season. moving off of Jimmy. It was problematic. It was traumatic. All those kind of things. And yeah, and you you won two playin games and you put up a good fight in the first round, but you lost your first round series in a sweep in the last two games by 92 points. I you know, this is a competitive market in the sense that people lose interest pretty quickly and I the Heat have not gone through prolonged valleys. This would be, as you said, a shortcut to build interest. So, I I just I I’m on the line with it. Okay. I I don’t I’m not eager to trade wear, but I also think that we have fallen in love sometimes with the Heat’s own players simply because they put on a Heat uniform. And I don’t know what they’re thinking internally of what he’s going to develop into in the framework of the current roster in the current environment. Yeah. Well, in that in the time frame to your point too, like how quickly is it going to it almost feels like could wear put it all together right as BAM starts to descend, you know, like that’s the questions you have to ask. But I do I just when I look at the roster and I look at like the reserves from a uh like just from a big man perspective, there’s just it’s not a lot. There’s not a lot there. So, it’s like it starts to get tricky when you think, “Okay, are you going to fill out your front court with a bunch of vet minimum guys?” Like, h how does that come together? I’m probably overthinking it to a degree. I think you’re you’re on to something with the the fan interest getting Durant. I think that that’s why ultimately I I could see them selling themsel on the idea of let’s see if D if we get to the playoffs with a healthy Durant and we have BAM anchoring defense and if you surround him with just enough, you know, of the right players and Spolstra gets the right mix going on a playoff run, maybe you do take that shot. That feels like something that they would be um usually open-minded and aggressive towards. So, it would be it would really show a a degree of restraint, I think, if they actually were to not pursue Kevin Durant and and try to not pursue the shortcut in this, you know, given moment, just considering uh how long the process could take otherwise. And I think that fans say that they’re ready for a rebuild, but I I don’t know if they’re really ready for what a rebuild, you know, what that looks like. No, they’re they’re absolutely I I’m not certain of many things in my life, but I am absolutely certain the Miami Heat fans will not tolerate a rebuild. They won’t. Not the majority will not. Um they can get excited about some of the young players, but it’s got to happen quick. It’s got to happen quick. So, we’ll see. We’ll see what happens there. All right. Thanks for our sponsors, all Pro Construction Builders, Prize Picks, more episodes to come. Use the code FIVE at prize picks. Thank you for listening to the five on the floor on the five reason sports network. After all, someone needs to listen to my dad.

It’s still being discussed, so we will too. Will the Miami Heat make another run at Kevin Durant this summer? Does it still make sense? And for what? Ethan Skolnick and Greg Sylvander host.

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