South Florida Sun-Sentinel Palm Beach (Sunday)
Heat’s Leonard refuses to be afterthought
MIAMI — Sometimes it is about the contract as much as the contributor. That doesn’t mean the acquisition doesn’t have value as player or person, it’s just that the NBA can be as much about the money as the man.
That essentially is how Meyers Leonard arrived to the Miami
Heat from the Portland Trail Blazers in the offseason.
Yes, an intriguing mix of bulk and shooting, with an effervescent and energetic personality, but also an expiring contract half as onerous as the one discarded with his trade for Hassan Whiteside.
The embrace was immediate, “he has developed into a great leader, great teammate,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said on media day.
And yet history also offers perspective.
Consider that when the Heat acquired guard Brian Roberts on the morning of Feb. 16, 2016, Spoelstra said, “We wanted to add some shooting. And that’s what Brian Roberts does. He’s a very good shooter. He can play off the ball. And he can get you into offense.”
That afternoon, mere hours later, Roberts was passed along to the Trail Blazers, part of luxury-tax maneuvering at the NBA trading deadline.
Similarly, when Zoran Dragic was acquired from the Phoenix Suns at the 2015 trading deadline, Heat president Pat Riley spoke of the shooting that Goran Dragic’s brother could provide.
The reality was the Phoenix Suns were looking to offload Zoran and his salary helped make the deal work. Five months later, Zoran was dealt to the Boston Celtics in a luxurytax dump.
Then there was A.J. Hammons, who was acquired as a facilitating salary in the July 7, 2017 dump of Josh McRoberts to the Dallas Mavericks.
“He needs all the reps that he can get, he needs the conditioning, he needs the five-on-five, he needs the drilling,” Spoelstra said of a initial G League assignment for Hammons, who ultimately would never play a game for the Heat, part of his salary still sitting on the Heat’s current books.
Which brings us back to Leonard, and the July 6 deal with the Blazers that completed the necessary bookkeeping for the Heat to add Jimmy Butler. In that trade, the Heat also acquired forward Maurice Harkless, who immediately was rerouted to the Los Angeles Clippers in a salary dump.
“We had texted when it happened,” Leonard said this week, “and then all of a sudden he was going to the Clippers.”
The difference to Leonard is that he is still with the Heat, even if his own expiring contract could be utilized later this season to get the Heat below the luxury tax.
So he has taken the Heat embrace at face value.
“I could care less about the business of basketball,” he said by his locker at AmericanAirlines Arena. “Money doesn’t impact my life. So, I do this because I love it and I do it because I love to be part of a team. So, to be completely honest, I don’t think about it. Every trade deadline, I don’t think about it.”
Truth be told, there is tangible value in Leonard, especially if the Heat attempt to move off of Kelly Olynyk’s contract before he has the right to opt out into free agency next summer.
“As far as I’m concerned,” Leonard said, “if I play pretty well, they probably want to keep me around.”
But there also is the reality of how Tyler Johnson and Wayne Ellington, as loyal to Heat culture as you can get, were discarded last season at least partly in the name of tax savings.
For now, Leonard is pushing forward, embracing everything about his second NBA stop.
“The truth is I’ve done my best to get to know the guys,” he said. “This is not my locker room. I haven’t been here very long. I’m going to show up to work, be a good dude.
“I guess I care to be unique in a good way. I don’t think about the money. I don’t think about being traded. I don’t think about getting traded to another team. Because if I take care of business, then everything’s going to be just fine.”
No matter what the business side might ultimately dictate.
“I guess I’m here to trump all these rumors or the way this league sometimes goes,” he said. “I’m not interested in that.”