The Miami Heat got off to a slow start this NBA season, going 2-5 out of the gate. They had begun settling in recently as they won five out of their next eight games, but have since dropped two consecutive losses since that point and are at 7-9 on the season.
Once again they are receiving very good production from Jimmy Butler, Bam Adebayo and Tyler Herro, but the rest of the team is leaving something to be desired. Other than those three players, Dewayne Dedmond is the only player on the roster with a PER above league average.
The Heat have been pretty average across the board as they are 12th in offensive rating and 16th in defensive rating. One area that the team will likely look to upgrade at some point during the season is power forward.
Miami suffered a major loss in the offseason when P.J. Tucker opted out of his contract and signed a free-agent deal with the Philadelphia 76ers. They were unable to address the void during the offseason, instead opting to go with Caleb Martin as their starting power forward.
LATEST NBA NEWS & TRADE RUMORS: Julius Randle, New York Knicks & Miami Heat Updates
Martin hasn’t been too bad, averaging 9.0 points, 4.8 rebounds, 1.9 assists and 1.2 steals per game. But, Miami wouldn’t turn down the opportunity to make an upgrade in their frontcourt. One intriguing option that has been mentioned is the team trading for Julius Randle of the New York Knicks.
It is anyone’s guess if Randle is truly available, as the New York Knicks don’t seem to know what direction they want to go. Despite some frustrating tendencies and lapses, Randle is the team’s best player and capable of some monster performances on both ends of the court. Just ask the Denver Nuggets about it, as Randle morphed into a two-way start against them on Wednesday night.
An NBA executive that spoke to Sean Deveney of Heavy.com believes the Heat could check in on Randle but is not sure that a deal would be able to materialize between the teams.
“Miami is probably the big team that will be looking for a power forward and he would at least be interesting there with Bam (Adebayo) and Jimmy Butler. They’d have to make up for him on the defensive end, but they are good at scheming that way and they’ve been really bad on the offensive end. The Knicks would have to take back (Duncan) Robinson and a couple of their young guys like (Omer) Yurtseven and (Nikola Jovic), something like that. The Knicks would have to trust Obi (Toppin) to take that spot, too. You could make it work but it might not be the best thing for either side, really.”
While Randle would be a strong fit in the frontcourt between Adebayo and Butler, as his strengths would help them in areas of weakness, matching up on a price will be difficult. It is hard to imagine a package centered around Duncan Robinson being enough to acquire anything of value, let alone someone of Randle’s caliber.
LATEST NBA NEWS & TRADE RUMORS: Julius Randle, New York Knicks & Miami Heat Updates
That doesn’t sound like a package that would be too intriguing to the Knicks, especially in exchange for Randle. New York has been looking to consolidate their roster and looking to trade one of their guards to alleviate their log jam, not add more players to the roster.
