After they lost in the NBA Finals in five games to the Denver Nuggets, the Miami Heat clearly need some upgrades in order to finally get over the hump, especially offensively.
There has been noise that they may try to go after Portland Trail Blazers star Damian Lillard this summer. After Wednesday’s news that the Washington Wizards’ Bradley Beal could be traded, Barry Jackson of the Miami Herald wrote that there is a way for Miami to land both of them.
“There is a path to the Heat acquiring both Portland’s Damian Lillard and Washington’s Bradley Beal, but it would require the cooperation of the Trail Blazers and the Wizards, as well as the two stars pushing their way to Miami,” wrote Jackson.
The process would start with both stars knowing that Miami is trying to land both of them.
“Somehow get word to both Lillard (or his agent Aaron Goodwin) and Beal (or his agent Mark Bartelstein) that the Heat is trying to pull off both Lillard and Beal trades,” Jackson stated.
This part would be difficult because NBA tampering rules forbid teams from speaking to players who are currently under contract with another franchise.
Lillard and Beal would then both have to specifically demand a trade to the Heat. This would be easier to achieve for Beal, who has a no-trade clause and has been linked to the Heat a few times in the last few years.
If this plan ever came to fruition, it would shake up the league and possibly shift some of its power balance to Miami.
For the last four years, the Heat have been one of the game’s elite teams when healthy, but they have lacked offensive firepower. Very often, they have fallen behind in games and have had to expend lots of energy simply to come within striking distance during crunch time.
During the regular season, they were the only team to average less than 110 points a game. This offensive impotence was evident late in the playoffs when they were held under 100 points twice by the Boston Celtics and four times by Denver. The Heat lost all six of those contests.
Beal has been languishing on some bad and mediocre Wizards teams for years, while Lillard has been to the playoffs many times but has never been on an elite team.
Both of them, or even just one of them, especially Lillard, would allow Miami to jump on teams early in games, win games more easily and play a more wide-open game rather than grind it out and keeps scores low.