Haywood Highsmith traded by Miami Heat WITH a pick. Why? | Five on the Floor

Haywood Highsmith traded by Miami Heat WITH a pick. Why? | Five on the Floor

Welcome to the latest episode of Five on the Floor on Five Reason Sports Network. Thanks for joining us on your favorite podcast app on Apple, Apple Podcast, on Android. We recommend Spotify. Also, check out the Five Reasons YouTube channel. Also, for all of your South Florida Sports Content, well, that’s the Pers YouTube channel. I’m sorry. I’m a little bit flustered. I wasn’t expecting this today. Off the floor link in our description. That’s to our Discord server. The most heat anywhere, the most heat information and conversation. Certainly, people are talking about this right now. again uh August bomb. So check it out. It’s off the floor. You can cancel at any time. Again, this is our Discord server. Also, prize picks. Use the code five fiv. Put down your five bucks. Get your 50 to play right away. Pric official fantasy sponsor for the five reason sports network. Play baseball WNBA and more. Also, NFL preseason is on there. So go to prizepix.com, use the code FIVE. And now today’s episode. Mercy luxurious heat nation. Yeah. Mercy down the gang. Five on the floor. Ride for my dogs. Here’s a thing. You can check the score. Hustle hard. Couple stars. Bubble frog. Got our own van. Y’all seen the block. Stop with one hand. And Pat trust is have the guts. We’re here to bring the heat. Y’all can hang 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. Welcome back to five on the floor. Here’s today’s floor plan. We have a trade in the middle of August. Miami Heat have dealt Heywood Highmith, who I just saw like two weeks ago at Miami Pro League. He was signing his old number 24. He was going to move to number eight with the Heat. Then there was the report that he nobody really knew about this that he had injured himself uh during offseason workouts in his native Baltimore. He was up there uh doing work. He was also threw out the first pitch at Orioles game and all that. We’ve done episodes about how he might be important to them as a defensive piece this year since they don’t seem to have a lot of those type of specialists. And then today he’s traded uh traded to the Brooklyn Nets along with a 2032 second round pick for a 2026 second round pick that is so protected and Greg’s going to get into that that we don’t think the Heat will ever see it. So essentially Haywood in the last year of his contract was traded along with a second round choice basically to just get him off the roster. Now, at the moment, that leaves two standard roster spots. Greg, you’ll correct me on this, but I believe they have to at least have 14. Right now, they have 13. We did report, and our guy Timothy Bane has been on top of this. There’s been a couple of episodes related to it that Kai Jones worked out with the Heat this week. Uh, the Heat do need front court help off the bench. Now, Kai Jones, according to what I understand, and Timothy just told me this, is on a plane to Nicaragua right now to train with the Bahamian national team uh for the American Cup. So, he’s out of Miami now, but the Heat have done whatever due diligence they’re going to do on him. And we’ll see what happens. As of the moment, he hasn’t accepted an offer overseas. But don’t forget about Drew Smith, too. And then and then Drew Smith, too, who right? Well, the Heat still have a two-way. So, the Heat right now have two roster spots available and a two-way available. And Drew Smith can’t be on that two-way, so he’s only there for a standard. So, here we are. I mean, is this is this where we’re headed to? And again, I really haven’t had this sort of dropped, you know, out of nowhere this afternoon. So, I haven’t really had the chance to do the due diligence on exactly why this happened, but it seems on the surface like a just get under the tax move, right, which they they didn’t have to do yet. They don’t have to do that until the end of the season. You’re right. I mean, we famously talked about how uh Andy has been given, you know, you’ve got until the deadline to get under the tax and he’s had to work his magic in in early February to get it done. So, it is interesting that they do it this early. So, there’s a couple things that frustrate me about this. So, I’m going to get those out of the way first. One is that it surprises me that an expiring contract that’s pretty mild in Haywood Highmith would require attaching a pick to move off of like it’s it looks completely Ethan like it’s a financially driven move. It looks like it’s the path of least resistance to get under the luxury tax. Obviously, now they have more um roster spots, so maybe some of these players that we’ve talked about um could come and and and take those spots. But Heywood Highmith also was a guy that Spolster trusted. He’s one of the few guys on this team that um well, I guess towards the end of last year, he kind of felt there were moments he fell out of favor, so I need to be fair here. But I’ve seen him be trusted late in games as a point of attack defender. it it it’s not a Miami Heat like move to get worse as a basketball team. Um, and this is what they’ve done here and they’ve given up a pick to do so. And the the good part about it, and I’ll just sneak in this, you know, I’ve given you the bad, is it seems like it’s financially driven, and that’s never fun for the fans. Just it isn’t. even though it’s the reality of the economics of the sport, um it does open up for anyone who said he was going to progress stop any of the younger players, they’ve got much clearer paths now. So, that’s something to think about, too. I bet that they had to wrestle with the fact that maybe they had to wave and stretch a player or do a move like this and they chose to do this versus hold um dead money on the books for multiple years going forward. So, let’s go through what some of the options might have been if this was a luxury tax move, which I look, we understand why they wanted to get under the repeater tax. I just didn’t know that they had to do it yet. So, there’s also the possibility, and I don’t want to I don’t want to hope traffic here, and I don’t have any information at this time to this, but that they could be working on something else also, which Yes. Right. So, I I want to leave that open because we have jumped to conclusions about things in the past, and like I said, the Norm Powell thing came out of nowhere. So I they’re they’re always looking. We’ll see what happens. On the surface, okay, if there’s nothing else here, we’ve done multiple episodes about them dumping second round picks, right? I mean, Kevin Durant was just traded basically for a bushel of second round picks and other stuff, but I mean, the second round picks were the sweeteners and they’ve now just given away another one. So I I again, there’s a cost best benefit analysis here of you didn’t really get one, right? I mean, that’s right. So, you gave away a second round pick to dump him. Mo most Heat fans are going to look at this like, shouldn’t you have gotten the second round pick? Like, I again, I’m not in these negotiations, but I know what the reaction is going to be. It’s going to be this is a useful player in the last year of his contract. Now, we know that Brooklyn has all this space, right? So, they can take players in. We’ve talked about them being kind of a a I hate to use this poratively, but like a the dumping ground for players. Like, they they have the ability to do that. Uh, but we’ll get into the roster stuff on the other side of this because I wrote a story for Sports Illustrated and we did an episode about who was going to benefit from Haywood’s absence. Well, now he’s absent. Like, there’s there’s no question about it. And I I also wonder, and again, I don’t have any information on this, if maybe they were concerned about how he’s going to come back from that knee injury and him going into the season. They had projected it at, they’re not usually this specific with their timelines, and they had projected it at 8 to 10 weeks in the release, right? And that took you up until basically like into the first week of camp and then pretty close to the regular season. So maybe they just want to do this now. Maybe the Nets are just open to doing this now. There’s all these possibilities. But I hope there’s something else coming because if if it this was basically because they didn’t want to wave and stretch Fonteio, well, you’re not really getting younger in the rotation then if that’s the case. Like if if because we’ve talked about Fonteo could sne sneak into like the 10th spot in the rotation when they acquired Fonteo in the Duncan Robinson trade. One of the things that was said to me was well we could wave and stretch him. We’re going to evaluate it but we could just like they could have done that with Kyle Anderson uh and they didn’t and they held on to Kyle Anderson. They ended up using his contract in a trade. Maybe they think there’s a trade later that they can use Fontio’s contract in down the line once, you know, once that’s a possibility. But I I don’t know. It it doesn’t like they could have used Haywood’s contract down the line, too. That’s why the timing of it is just to your point, they had until February. And so for them to very quickly move on this, it suggests that they’ve got a a plan to probably fill at least one of the roster spots pretty quickly. So, we’re probably going to Ethan, we were joking before the episode that we we don’t get a day off with this stuff. We’re going to probably have to do another one because there’s going to be a follow-up move of some kind. Well, I I wouldn’t be surprised if Kai Jones is the follow-up move. I I really wouldn’t if they were because we’ve tal Right, because we’ve talked about this. They they don’t Excuse me. They don’t have uh the ability to put Kai Jones on on a two-way. They worked him out for multiple days. He has an offer overseas. There was a time crunch to this. And this strikes me as they like the player enough. I could be completely wrong about that, but it’s funny cuz you said they would go over the tax for Kai Jones. Well, they’re not going to go over the tax for Kai Jones. If that’s what they end up doing here, um, but if they end up signing him, you know, when I look, when Timothy was on the pod and he knows him very well, he was the first to really ever interview him when he was 16, 17 years old to do a lengthy interview on him and he says that whatever problems there were in 2023 were overstated. Uh, the Heat have, I’m sure, done their due diligence about all of that stuff. So, we’ll see if it’s Guy Jones. We’ll see if it’s some other move, but we just want to keep hammering this point. They did not need to get under the tax now. No, they didn’t. And so they could have said to dump a player right now. They did not. That’s not did not have to. There’s a reason they’re doing this. And we’ll figure out what the reason is. And I know the next thing for Heat fans is going to be this. Why can’t they just dump Terry Rosier? It’s just not that easy. I mean, that’s that’s the problem. He’s in the last year of his contract, too, but he’s 24 $25 million on the books. That’s a different deal. I mean, the Nets could take his money, but I, you know, doesn’t seem like they’re inclined to do that. But again, now we’re even further into the future. How many second round picks did the Heat have? I’m not counting this one. So, they now in two tradable seconds. Okay, right now, there’s got to be some other reason for this. I’m just going to give them the benefit of the doubt on that cuz if it’s if it’s simply a move off Haywood unless again you didn’t think that he was going to be healthy enough to help you early in the season and there is the progress stopping thing which you mentioned but if Fontekio ends up getting those minutes you’re you’re not I mean Haywood’s younger than him so it’s different if it’s all L and Hz and they really commit to seeing what they have there like then I’ll say you know what functionally I get it but if it ends up being Fonteo you’re right it’s like what are we doing here? Yeah. No, that I that wouldn’t make a lot of sense. So, I’m going to give them the benefit of the doubt and say it’s not that until I find out that it is. All right. On the other side of this, right, uh the other side of this, we’ll talk more about kind of who benefits here. You you tipped it off a little bit. Uh do want to mention a great sponsor of the Five Reason Sports Network. I’m giving him an ad here because he was particularly close with Haywood. He just texted me like, “Wow.” Okay. I was just with this guy actually at Miami Pro League when Haywood was there a couple weeks ago. It’s our guy Eric Rubenstein. Uh he knows all the stars. He’ll get to know Kai Jones well here, too. Uh, but anyway, if you need a personal injury attorney, he’s your guy. Uh, went to St. Thomas University. He’s from Lauder Hill, Florida. He’s a local guy. He’s a huge Miami Heat fan. He’s really good at what he does. He’s got a really entertaining Instagram account. Follow it attorney Rubenstein or ask me a ask about me. I got you. And it’s 877829 Eric. That’s 877-8293742. We’re sorry about this, Eric. Uh, eric rubenstein.com. Also, by the way, okay, I go to Mr.01 all the time. They’re not a sponsor. They should be. I got a friend of mine who uh who actually manages the one here in Flaggler Village in Fort Lauderdale where I live. If you are a Heat player and you want to stay in South Florida, do not get yourself a personal pizza named after you at Mr. O1. Okay. The Caleb Martin pizza was delicious. He designed it. He’s gone. And I tried the Haywood Highmith pizza two weeks ago and it was pretty damn good, too. It’s one of the star pizzas and now he’s gone also. So, if any Heat if any Heat players want to stay here for a while, Norm Powell, do not get a pizza from Mr. 01. Uh, Greg, what are you looking at there? Uh, just catching up on what uh Bobby Marks has put out there in terms of where the Heat are. Uh they are now 9.5 million away from the first apron just as we clean some of this stuff up because it looks like this was to get four million now below the tax. So they can add a player. There’s no longer an issue with them thinking about having to be um a tax team. And it’s just a shame that uh it looks like they surrendered to pick to do it. And this is what fans have asked them not to do. uh and they’ve asked them to plan differently and think differently so that you’re not put in these positions where now if you need to cobble together a lot of picks, you’re down another pick and and some of it I think is nitpicking when we talk about these seconds, but some of it becomes valid, especially if there’s not really a follow-up move here. But we need to reserve judgment until we see what what happens with the available roster spots Miami has. They gave up a more functional player in this trade and attached a second round pick than they gave up to get Norm Powell. They they don’t trade the Haywood Highmiths of Heat like culture like the guys that buy in that just play their role, play hard, defend. Like they don’t trade those guys, Ethan. That’s not normally what they do. I can’t envision that the coaching staff loved the idea of just getting rid of Heywood Highmith, even if he was going to start the year um and he wasn’t healthy. So, uh, it’s a weird move for them. Well, here’s the other thing. We really didn’t talk about this last year, but Haywood was one of the guys, um, who kept his feelings in about the whole Jimmy thing. Yeah, I’ll just leave it at that. We We had a lot of information related to that. Jimmy didn’t treat him particularly well from what was my understanding of what went on behind the scenes. Uh, and I I don’t know. I mean, I look, it’s it’s hard for me to believe with a guy like Haywood that he was ever a problem just because of the way that he presented himself to the public and and in all other ways. I mean, extremely humble individual, seemed to do whatever it is that Spo asked him to do. Um, now you’re right in that there were times where he sort of oddly fell out of favor and we would discuss that a lot and I know that was a big talking point for Brady that he didn’t really understand why Haywood would disappear for 3 weeks and then come back. So, I don’t I don’t know if there was something else the coaching staff saw, but I I’ll just leave it at this. Okay, I understand getting under the repeater tax. I’m not going to argue with that. Uh, they just had time to do it. So, I’ll I’ll So, so it’s got to be this. Either they got something else lined up and maybe it’s just Kai Jones and Drew Smith, like you said, and if that’s the case, then that’s what they’re taking. Or maybe they wait out training camp to see who gets that 15th spot, right? And when they’re going to end up paying it. This does give them more quote unquote flexibility. uh for a se to give up a second round pick gives them less flexibility going forward. So that kind of cuts into it a little bit. Um and I I just I hope there’s something else here. I just hope there’s something else. And and I also hope like I said it it can’t be Fontio may have a skill set they like perhaps. Okay, he’s a shooter more of a natural shooter than Heywood, although Haywood shot a higher percentage last year. Uh and and maybe they want to build on it a little bit and see, but he’s also 30 years old. So I I let’s see Hakez, let’s see Yoic, let’s see Larson, let’s see Kashad Johnson. If he’s if you’re giving him a standard, you got to play him now, right? These are the guys that we talked about when I did the piece for SI. I’m like, who benefits the most? Well, to me, number one is Hakez with with high speed out. Like if not now, Haimey when, right? Like that’s the thing. Like he’s got to show that last year was a fluke. They’ve cleared the path for him, right? That’s one. Okay. two, I think Larson has already secured a roster spot, but now it’s absolutely clear they they I’m not a roster spot, a rotation spot. They kind of need his defense. They need his defense. They need his tenacity on defense. And I that’s probably one of the things that they liked when they saw uh him in summer league. Uh and the other Yoic, look, he wasn’t competing directly with Highmith for minutes, but we know Spo likes to size down. Now, there may be a little bit less opportunity to do that. Also, Wiggins better be great defensively because he was not when he came over last year and if he’s still going to be here, he’s going to take on the assignments that sometimes Haywood would take on. And the other guy is Kashad Johnson, who again I like a lot, but they’re investing a standard contract in a guy he can’t play like under 300 minutes this year. Like, this is an opportunity. And it’s funny, Greg, because I wasn’t impressed with Kashad’s play um in summer league except the one game, the last one I was out there for, and Eric Glass took responsibility. He says he kind of unleashed him a little bit in that game. He looked more like he knew what to do. Um I know Mark Jones who we had on the pod, he talked about he might have mentioned on podcast himself he loved what he saw from Kishad in summer in the in this pro league. Uh his athleticism, all that. Again, I don’t know how that translates. Beasley and Whiteside are still playing in that pro league. But it’s it’s it’s an opportunity for these guys and they better take it. Yeah. And I mean, we talked about this being a season where they’re going to be be able to evaluate all their young players. And if they’re going to do that, this is the type of move that you hope it’s not just financially driven and that they do lean into those young players. You find out what you have and if they if that means that they got to take some lumps along the way, I don’t think they’re going to blow uh 22 leads and lose games the way that they did last year or whatever the final number was. Uh, I know that it was a lot. So, um, play the young guys regardless. So, I mean, if that’s what it results in, that’s fine. But I hope that it’s not just financially driven cuz that I mean, they had till February. That’s the fact, right? Well, they had beyond February. Well, they have till February to make the move. They have till the last day of the regular season to actually get under it, right? So, they had chances to do this. Maybe they don’t see a path to moving Rosir or some of these others uh before then. But again, I’m going to reserve judgment. Let’s see how it plays out. I would watch the Kai Jones thing. I I feel like and like you said, I think Drew also I don’t know where Drew is in his recovery right now. I just know how much Spo likes him and I you know obviously they’ve taken videos of him around the facility. It doesn’t seem like it’s a player and they put it on social media. It doesn’t seem like a player they’re planning to move on. They use Haywood in a lot of their promotional stuff. Like they they got He’s probably like, “Damn, I had to go to four summer camps this summer. Damn it.” Oh my god. Well, my daughter has a signed ball from him. So that this is from last summer and she’s distressed. Okay. She was at her orientation today. I said, “Hey was trained.” She’s like, “What?” I’m like, you know, I mean, I think I think daughters and sons, they think they can get traded, too. I think that’s why they get so scared about it. And I know you you have your own. I I’ll I’ll finish with this. Okay. Um, good for Heywood Heismith. U you know, I he made himself a player when he when he first came in with the Heat. We talked about very very very limited upside. had had some defensive chops, but he was the worst rated defensive player in off, excuse me, offensive player in the league in his first year of playing time and he became a functional spot-up three-point shooter. He was up and down defensively last year, but he still had his moments and again, he represented himself, from all that I know, uh, very well in the community, represented the team well, and he, you know, he made an NBA career out of it. And I hope, you know, he signed a two-year contract. He was hoping to stay long term. I know that uh for sure he signed it signed a two-year. He kind of framed it he wanted three years initially. Kind of framed it as wanting flexibility. He was waiting on Caleb’s thing to get done the previous offseason. What a mess. Signed two years. Now he’s got an opportunity with the Nets to play. I’ll I’ll just say I don’t think it’s a great place for him. I Heywood Heismith to me is a player who is better on a good team. He plugs holes, defends. They ask him to do things that are out of his kind of toolbox. It’s and they don’t have a lot of options there. Uh it’s I I don’t know exactly what kind of fit it’s going to be, but it’s worse places to be sent than New York. So uh so good for him on that and uh and we wish him the best. And and the other thing is he got a little cash from Norm Powell for that jersey before he was traded, so at least he got something to take to New York that could pay the taxes. Uh Greg, appreciate it. We’ll have more episodes as we go. Um and also check out the 2006 series. Matt Mayorga did a long interview with Eric Reed. It’s excellent. Uh, and we have it up on the YouTube channel and on the podcast feed. So, if you like Eric, listen to it. Matteo’s gonna be hosting some of these episodes. Have a good one. 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.

The Miami Heat made another move, one that appears to be tax-related (though we will wait and see). Ethan Skolnick and Greg Sylvander discuss the deal of Haywood Highsmith to Brooklyn, and if anything comes next.

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