Grateful trade was never made
Pat Riley has made a Miami Heat career of getting what he wants. Alonzo Mourning. Tim Hardaway. Shaquille O’Neal. LeBron James. Chris Bosh.
And yet, as the Heat on Monday seek to close out a first-round sweep of the Indiana Pacers at the NBA’s Disney bubble, this openinground playoff series has become, in part, about Riley being unable to get rid of what he seemingly didn’t want 14 months ago.
And what the Heat again have come to covet.
For all of the machinations it eventually took to acquire Jimmy Butler in free agency from the Philadelphia 76ers in the 2019 offseason, the equation initially seemingly was going to be as simple as sending Josh Richardson to Philadelphia and unloading the remaining 2019-20 season on Goran Dragic’s contract on the Dallas Mavericks.
Luka Doncic was going to be reunited with his Slovenian championship teammate. On June 30, 2019, it was a done deal, streaming across tickers at the bottom of screens, being widely reported among NBA outlets.
And then it wasn’t.
Error in communication, was one explanation. Presumption on the part of the Heat, another.
Ultimately? As this series against the Pacers has shown so far … blessing in disguise, with Dragic coming off Saturday’s 24-point performance that helped the Heat to a 3-0 lead in this best-of-seven series, after 24 points in Game 1 and 20 more in Game 2.
“It’s fun to play with all the guys,” Dragic said, as the Heat turned their attention to Monday’s 3:30 p.m. game against the Pacers.
And yet, it almost never came
to this.
The Mavericks, it seems, while working through those trade and salary-cap maneuvers 14 months ago, thought the ultimate agreement with the Heat was more along the lines of taking on Kelly Olynyk and Derrick Jones Jr.
Granted, both Olynyk and Jones also have had their moments in this series and during this season, but neither has matched the impact of Dragic, not even combined.
For some, the mere notion of having been offered up as some type of castoff could have soured a season.
For Dragic, it wasn’t even worth losing sleep.
As the Heat and Mavericks were negotiating at the outset of 2019 free agency, Dragic slept.
“If I’m honest, I did not hear it,” Dragic said earlier this season, of the chaos of the Butler signing, which took place while he was home in his native Slovenia. “I heard it after, a little bit. Because when that was going on, I was asleep. I was sleeping. I didn’t know what was going on.
“Of course, the next day, in the morning, I received a lot of texts. It was a little bit crazy, because at first you didn’t know if the deal went through or not. So a lot of my friends called me and were asking me. But I did not have a clue, because I just woke up.”
What followed was a whirlwind that allowed the Heat, operating amid severe financial salary-cap restraints, to finish off the Butler acquisition, improvisation that ultimately changed the face of these playoffs for more than just Dragic and the Heat.
Instead of using their cap space on Dragic, the Mavericks signed Delon Wright and made a freeagency run at Danny Green, who instead signed with the Los Angeles Lakers.
The Heat then moved on to work out a deal with the Portland Trail Blazers that sent Hassan Whiteside to Portland and delivered Meyers Leonard and Maurice Harkless to the Heat.
In order to make the math work, the Heat rerouted Harkless and a first-round pick to the Los Angeles Clippers, with the Clippers eventually flipping Harkless to the New York Knicks for Marcus Morris.
And, as planned, Richardson went to the 76ers, a move that cleared Philadelphia cap space to sign Al Horford.
It was, in the end, a circuitous path for the Heat to Butler that impacted these NBA playoffs on almost a league-wide basis.
And yet, a case could be made that the most significant impact was the move not made, the move that would have/could have sent Dragic to Dallas.
No bitterness then. The joy of a 3-0 playoff lead now.
“I just,” Dragic said, “let it go.”