(Photo via USA TODAY Sports)
Haywood Highsmith’s trade to the Brooklyn Nets made him the final domino to depart from the Miami Heat’s undrafted assets over the years. They committed to developing each of Highsmith, Duncan Robinson, Caleb Martin, Max Strus and Gabe Vincent— who all became staples of coach Erik Spoelstra’s rotation amid several playoff runs.
The problem? All of them are now gone, with virtually nothing of value received in return.
Martin and Vincent both walked in unrestricted free agency for nothing (although a gamble from Martin wound up having him accept a worse contract offer than Miami’s). Strus was a sign-and-trade, which only netted the Heat a second-round draft pick, while he became a crucial starter for the top seed Cleveland Cavaliers.
More recently, Robinson was part of a sign-and-trade earlier this summer in return for Simmone Fontecchio from the Detroit Pistons. And then Highsmith was salary dumped to avoid the luxury tax for a worthless second-round pick.
Unfortunately for Heat fans, Pat Riley and the front office have done a poor job at asset management for years now.
In addition to those issues, they have yet to adjust to the modern era of deal making to bring in new talent to upgrade the roster, despite their rare hit on the discounted Norman Powell acquisition.
Highsmith’s trade was the final piece to walk out the door from their undrafted crew. There’s no question that the Heat have been successful in developing players, especially during the Jimmy Butler era. But to be invested in doing so, making players better, and witnessing them leave for nothing is a tough pill to swallow.
Considering the fact that Highsmith would’ve been a key contributor for Spoelstra’s depth this upcoming season makes it sting a little more. However, it opens up the ability to make a veteran minimum addition. Miami is currently at 13 players on standard deals, and need to at least have 14 to meet league requirements.
The silver lining comes with opportunities to open up for intriguing younger pieces like Nikola Jovic, Pelle Larsson and Jaime Jaquez Jr. to step up in the Heat rotation.
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The Miami Heat’s 2022-2023 roster included players like Bam Adebayo, Jimmy Butler, Tyler Herro, Kyle Lowry, Victor Oladipo, Gabe Vincent, Caleb Martin, and Max Strus. The team also featured Nikola Jović, Haywood Highsmith, Kevin Love, Duncan Robinson, Dewayne Dedmon, Omer Yurtseven, Jamaree Bouyea, Orlando Robinson, Cody Zeller, and Udonis Haslem.
The only players left from the 2023 NBA Finals team are: Bam, Herro & Jović. Talk about re-tooling the team right before our very eyes.
Thats a bit unfair.
Four of them were due big increase in salary. Three of them signs big contract somewhere else. From that trio, only one justified that salary (kind of).
Dunc signed with the Heat. And he didn’t justified his contract.
HH career is still to be determined, but I think he will be around for a year or two, and then out of the league. He is just not talented enough to achieve more.
Other tams GMs are not fools, most of them. They know, that Heat undrafted boys underachieve after leaving Miami.
Is was just impossible to squeeze a lot more out of this group.
Oh my gosh Niko dunked the ball in his latest game we winning a chip this year
He is good against Germany
22 points against the better of Wagner brothers. Not bad.
Nice column Dan. I do appreciate hearing the truth about our ever more fallible GM. Coming from you it will be accepted, but if we say it we get pushback from those who continue to believe that three years ago isn’t a long time in the NBA. Then there are those who point to the successful moves and downplay the mistakes while actually both should be analyzed in any assessment of our GM’s efficacy. It’s the percentage of good to bad that is the measure to observe.
I do predict that this year, where ironically the commendations for a storied career continue to come in (this time from the Lakers), that the less successful moves will have finally accumulated enough to start to stick to Riley’s previously tefloned patina. The great thing about sports is you can’t finesse results, and success will always eventually be measured in the win/loss column. One or even two years of mediocrity can be overlooked in a great career, but a third year in a row becomes harder to rationalize.
You are spot on