Miami Heat: Why trading for DeMar DeRozan would be a bad idea

We don’t know what this Miami Heat offseason will hold given the current state of the Eastern Conference, but many are bracing for a very wacky summer.

The Heat are coming off a 37-win season, their worst since 2014-15. The expectation is that Miami will go after Phoenix Suns star Kevin Durant, but ClutchPoints NBA insider Brett Siegel recently linked it to Kings veteran DeMar DeRozan.

Miami was allegedly in the hunt for the six-time All-Star last year. Sacramento is expected to explore the trade market for DeRozan, who will be entering his age-36 season with two more years left on his contract. Should this be a swing that the Heat take?

Miami should NOT pursue DeMar DeRozan under any circumstance:

In his first year with Sacramento, DeRozan averaged 22.2 points, 3.9 rebounds and 4.4 assists per game, shooting 47.7 percent from the floor, 32.8 percent from 3-point range and 85.7 percent from the free-throw line.

In a perfect world, DeRozan would be a respectable lead creator alongside Tyler Herro and Bam Adebayo. But while he would slightly elevate the team’s floor offensively, I, once again, alarm people that his fit would be murky, at best.

The 16-year veteran doesn’t space the floor, having shot 32.7 percent from deep over his last five seasons, where he’s barely attempted 13 percent of his shot attempts. When the ball’s not in his hands, he doesn’t command the same respect as a typical floor spacer would, clogging space around him.

He operates in the same areas as the team’s best players–both Tyler Herro and Bam Adebayo took at least 35 percent of their shots in the mid-range, ranking in the 69th and 99th percentile among their respective positions, according to Cleaning The Glass.

Both Herro and Adebayo showcased increased long-rang frequency last season. Both players saw their 3-point rates tick up, but in Herro’s case, as teams were running him off the 3-point line in the latter half of the season, most of his shots were mid-range attempts; 180 of his 363 shots since the start of March were inside the arc, beyond four feet of the rim, with an average 2-point shot distance of 8.01 feet, per PBP Stats. In Adebayo’s case, defenses were still daring him to take 3s–will that change next season? Perhaps, but is it enough to fit another mid-range maestro next to him? I doubt it.

DeRozan is also a below-average defender and isn’t quite the facilitator Miami needs to organize its offense. He’s improved as a passer, but not all assists are created equally, and you’re not relying on DeRozan to make consistent reads out of the pick-and-roll (where his defender will duck under screens) or set it up each possession, even though he was successful in better-spaced Kings offense in 2023-24.

In a perfect world, you’d want DeRozan to have enough space to get to his spots and react accordingly. Miami’s offense has had difficulty creating legitimate space for their best creators for the last three seasons–why would that be any different with DeRozan? He’s excellent at getting to the free-throw line, but he doesn’t provide much rim pressure and isn’t very efficient relative to his (mid-range heavy) shot diet.

There’s no question that DeRozan would be the Heat’s best closer. There’s also little doubt that he could elevate the team’s floor. But the goal should be to get younger, and not older (Father time is undefeated!), for a one-way player who hardly fills the Heat’s immediate needs for a dynamic shot creator.

DeRozan isn’t a ceiling raiser, and few players in the NBA could elevate the Heat’s ceiling to a contender in the immediate future. Miami isn’t in position to swing for Durant, let alone a worse, less efficient offensive engine, even at an inexpensive cost.

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