Heat deserve credit for alleviating biggest weakness at trade deadline

While the Miami Heat lost arguably the third-best player in franchise history–a joyless Jimmy Butler–they picked three crucial acquisitions ahead of Thursday’s trade deadline: Andrew Wiggins, Davion Mitchell and Kyle Anderson.

The trade deadline is a perfect opportunity for teams in the hunt to shore up any weaknesses that could be at its detriment come April and May, when the real fun begins–in the playoffs.

Despite Butler’s prolonged absences, the Heat have been a top-10 defense this season. Though that does come with a caveat, as perhaps the biggest chink in the Miami Heat’s armor was its point-of-attack defense. According to Basketball Index, accounting for only the players who were top-10 in total minutes played, the Heat’s perimeter isolation defense and ball screen navigation defense clocked in as the NBA’s sixth-worst. Regardless of how the Heat would bridge this next build without their six-time All-Star, their perimeter defense needed to be stingier. And it didn’t have the means to make that necessary.

Until Thursday.

The floor was raised significantly on Wednesday with the acquisition of Wiggins, an incredibly versatile wing defender who, at worst, can defend three positions at a high level. As part of the original return of the five-team trade was 39-year-old veteran PJ Tucker, who has not suited up since May. Tucker, on the books for $11 million, was a part of the Heat in 2019-20 before signing a three-year deal for the full mid-level exception with the Philadelphia 76ers the following offseason–a luxury that the Heat weren’t able to offer without hard-capping themselves.

Tucker was traded from the Los Angeles Clippers to the Utah Jazz earlier this month, and was ultimately flipped as part of this Butler package. Though his time in Miami barely lasted 12 hours; Tucker was dealt to Toronto for 26-year-old feisty point guard Davion Mitchell, a former top-10 pick who’s in the last year of his rookie contract.

If you were to make a 6-foot guard in Pat Riley’s lab, it would be Davion Mitchell. He exudes the toughness and grit that the Heat brass salivates over. He’s the quintessential embodiment of #HEATCulture™.

The metrics are the metrics, but they do say that Wiggins and Mitchell are top-tier point-of-attack defenders. Both players grade out in the 99th percentile or better–among all players–in perimeter isolation defense while placing in the 54th and 88th in ball screen navigation, respectively.

While Anderson isn’t quite the ball-stopper that both Wiggins and Mitchell are, he’s a very smart and positionally-sound defender with keen instincts. He fits perfectly into the team structure that Spoelstra vocalizes.

When either Haywood Highsmith or Bam Adebayo are a tick-off defensively, Miami’s defensive composition collapses. Now, with more length, versatility and more functional pieces to the puzzle defensively, perhaps the Heat’s defensive armor that was once vulnerable becomes a little more impenetrable. They are clearly leaning into the defense with these three adds for the final 33 games of the season, though Spoelstra now has more intriguing combinations with better balance that he can deploy with Wiggins, Mitchell and Anderson.

And all for a disgruntled star that didn’t want to be here. All in all, a change in direction and approach was healthy for all parties–and I wish the best of Butler, who gave the Heat unforgettable moments they will cherish forever. But as we lean into this new build, re-ministering the grit that made this organization who it was–a trait it has lacked each of the last two seasons–should have been at the forefront fo their priorities. And while the puzzle is far from complete, the proper pieces are to curate such an environment for the rest of the season and beyond.

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