Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Lowry, Aldridge linked as trade deadline looms
You start here for the Miami Heat as the clock ticks toward Thursday’s 3 p.m. NBA trading deadline: The money doesn’t work.
At least not the $54 million price tag for the two players mostly closely linked by league insiders.
But $30 million? That could be doable. And enough for the Heat to still wind up, perhaps within a week, with both Kyle Lowry and LaMarcus Aldridge.
The $30 million price tag belongs to Lowry, who is in the final year of his contract with Toronto, with his impending free agency a concern for the Raptors.
The remaining $24 million is LaMarcus Aldridge’s salary on the final year of his contract with the San Antonio Spurs.
For Lowry, the only path to a Heat acquisition this season would be a trade.
With Aldridge, the lone logical fiscal path for the Heat would be on the buyout market.
That has the clock with Lowry winding down to Thursday’s deadline.
For Aldridge, who has reached an agreement with San Antonio to
be relocated and is away from the Spurs, the ultimate deadline is his release by the Spurs by April 9, leaving him then eligible for another team’s playoff roster. That’s if he is not traded first.
A report by The Ringer has the Heat at the forefront of contenders for both Lowry and Aldridge.
To get the equation to work for Lowry, it likely would involve an intriguing younger player, perhaps Tyler Herro or Duncan Robinson, and ample salaries to match. That math would figure to start with some combination of Goran Dragic ($18 million), Andre Iguodala ($15 million), Kelly Olynyk ($12.6 million). All three of those deals are expiring contracts, with Dragic’s trade permission needed because of the structure of his contract.
For Aldridge, there is less likelihood of the Heat adding a young player as a sweetener, and likely a prioritization to utilize salary ballast elsewhere. That makes Aldridge going undealt by the Spurs at the trade deadline the most likely path for Aldridge to eventually relocate to the Heat.
For his part, even with the Raptors’ struggles that have them at 17-25 and 11th in the Eastern Conference, Lowry is playing it coy.
“It’s my birthday week. I don’t care what happens,” he said. “I know it’s my birthday, that’s all I know. The 25th is my birthday, so whatever else is going on that day, I wouldn’t know.”
The inherent risk in a trade for Lowry is that he could walk as a free agent after the season with nothing in return. But Heat president Pat Riley has dealt for Dragic and Shaquille O’Neal in contract years previously, retaining both going forward.
It would be a similar situation if the Heat were to engage the fire-sale Houston Rockets for Victor Oladipo, who long has made clear a fascination with the Heat. Oladipo also is eligible for free agency this offseason.
Factoring into the timing for the Heat was Monday’s 11:59 p.m. expiration of a $7.5 million trade exception gained from last year’s deadline deal of forward James Johnson. That amount only can be utilized in a trade and cannot be combined with another exception or player for a player earning more. As of Monday evening, the presumption within the team was the exception would go unspent.
The Heat acted a day before last year’s deadline in acquiring Iguodala, Jae Crowder and Solomon Hill from the Memphis Grizzlies in the deal that sent out Justise Winslow, Dion Waiters and Johnson.
The Heat also could potentially take the long view with Lowry and Oladipo, with the ability to pull together upwards of $28 million in salary-cap space in the offseason for a freeagent addition.