The Miami Heat’s patient pursuit of Klay Thompson ran into its first real complication Monday, when Christian Clark of The Athletic reported that the Dallas Mavericks have actively explored the trade market for the veteran sharpshooter without finding a deal — and that Thompson himself would be open to finishing his career in Los Angeles.
For a Heat front office that has staked its remaining offseason flexibility on waiting Dallas out, both details matter. The first confirms that the Mavericks are genuinely working to move on from Thompson, which keeps Miami’s hopes alive.
The second introduces something the Heat had not yet faced in this saga: a rival destination with a personal pull.
What the new report says
According to Clark, multiple sources with rival teams indicated that Dallas has shopped Thompson this offseason but has yet to land on a workable framework, leaving it unclear whether the 36-year-old will open a third season with the franchise. Thompson is due $17.5 million in the final year of the three-year contract he signed with the Mavericks in 2024 and is on track for unrestricted free agency next summer.
The Heat, Clark added, are “frequently mentioned in NBA circles” as a landing spot. That squares with everything reported out of Miami over the past month, from the moment the Heat’s interest first surfaced in July to the more recent reporting that Thompson sits atop Miami’s board ahead of DeMar DeRozan and Bradley Beal.
The genuinely new element is geographic. Clark reported that Thompson has an affinity for Los Angeles, where he lived for part of his childhood and still keeps a home, and that a return there would appeal to him.
Thompson’s father, Mychal, won two championships with the Showtime-era Lakers, so the roots run deeper than real estate.
Dallas has no reason to blink yet
Miami’s entire approach has been built on the assumption that time works in the Heat’s favor. The math in Dallas complicates that assumption.
The Mavericks currently carry 16 standard contracts, which means one player must be traded or waived before opening night. That roster crunch is the strongest structural force pushing Thompson toward the door.
Pulling in the other direction is the fact that Dallas sits only about $2.3 million below the luxury tax line, which means the Mavericks feel little financial pressure to hand Thompson his full $17.5 million and let him walk in a buyout.
That reading matches what NBA insider Jake Fischer has said about the situation.
“The Mavericks, to my understanding, have been keen on wanting to keep Klay Thompson for a trade,” Fischer said. “The word has been consistent though that Dallas does not want to buyout Klay Thompson and see him walk for nothing.”
Fischer went further on why the Mavericks are comfortable holding their position.
“They want to hold a high price for Klay, for now, because they do envision this group being a playoff-caliber ish, play-in caliber team around Cooper Flagg next year,” he said.
There is one force working quietly in Miami’s favor inside that same report. Clark noted that Dallas already addressed its shooting need this summer by trading for Santi Aldama and securing the rights to Tarik Biberovic, who hit 42.0 percent of his threes in the EuroLeague, while Kyrie Irving’s return from a torn ACL looms later in the season.
A team that has replaced Thompson’s function has less basketball reason to keep him — even if it has every financial reason not to pay him to leave.
Miami’s math only works one way
Why don’t the Heat simply trade for him? Because the hard cap has already answered that question. Miami triggered the first-apron hard cap earlier this offseason, and the roster it has assembled around Giannis Antetokounmpo and Bam Adebayo leaves almost no matching salary to work with.
Anthony Chiang of the Miami Herald reported on July 30 that only three players on the current roster — Nikola Jovic, Davion Mitchell and Bobby Portis — could be traded one-for-one for Thompson’s salary, and each fills a role Miami is not eager to vacate.
“The cleaner path is for the Mavericks to eventually agree to a buyout with Thompson, with Thompson hypothetically giving up $7 million of his current salary to become a free agent,” Chiang wrote. “The Heat can then make up the difference on the money Thompson gave up by using the rest of its midlevel exception to offer him a $7 million salary for this upcoming season.”
Miami has roughly $8 million remaining on its non-taxpayer midlevel exception, so Chiang’s framework fits inside the Heat’s actual toolkit with a little room to spare. But it depends entirely on two decisions Miami does not control: Dallas agreeing to eat money it currently has no incentive to eat, and Thompson agreeing to surrender roughly $7 million of guaranteed salary for the right to choose his destination.
The Los Angeles wrinkle changes the wait
Until Monday, the Heat’s patience carried one risk: that Dallas never budges. Clark’s reporting adds a second one.
If a buyout eventually happens, Thompson becomes a free agent choosing among suitors, and a player with childhood ties to Los Angeles, a home in the area and a father woven into Lakers history would have a genuine alternative to South Florida. The Heat would be selling a defined role next to two All-NBA frontcourt players; Los Angeles would be selling home.
The basketball case for Miami remains strong. Thompson shot 38.3 percent from three-point range last season even while his role shrank to career lows of 11.7 points and 21.7 minutes per game across 69 appearances under former Dallas coach Jason Kidd, and there is no guarantee new coach Dusty May would restore his standing.
In Miami, the minutes and the attempts would be waiting for him — four of the seven most accurate three-point shooters on last season’s Heat roster are no longer with the team, and the spacing question around Antetokounmpo has hung over the roster all summer, even as Erik Spoelstra has publicly embraced the group as constructed.
None of that has changed. What changed Monday is the shape of the risk. The Heat spent July establishing Thompson as the priority over
