The Miami Heat’s interest in Klay Thompson has been reported for weeks, but until Thursday, the coverage was long on who and short on how.
Anthony Chiang filled in that gap in his latest Miami Herald mailbag, which addressed two questions Heat fans have been asking since LeBron James chose Philadelphia: Why the front office has made a 36-year-old sharpshooter its top remaining target, and what a realistic path to acquiring him actually looks like.
The answer to the second question explains a lot about why Miami’s offseason has gone quiet. The Heat are not gearing up for an aggressive trade pursuit, because the roster barely allows for one. They are waiting — deliberately — for a buyout that the Dallas Mavericks have so far shown no interest in granting.
A buyout remains Miami’s preferred path
According to Chiang, the Heat “will remain patient in filling out the rest of its roster” specifically to give Thompson time to reach a separation agreement with Dallas.
That patience is not indecision; it is a strategy built around the limited tools Miami has left after the Giannis Antetokounmpo blockbuster reshaped the payroll.
A trade for Thompson is technically possible but difficult to build, because only three players on the current roster — Nikola Jovic, Davion Mitchell and Bobby Portis — carry salaries that would match Thompson’s in a one-for-one deal.
The cleaner scenario involves Thompson giving back roughly $7 million of the money Dallas owes him in the final year of his three-year, $50 million contract, reaching free agency, and then recouping that amount from the Heat, who could use the remaining portion of their midlevel exception to pay him about $7 million for the 2026-27 season.
In that world, Thompson loses essentially nothing financially, Miami adds an elite shooter without surrendering a rotation player, and the only cost is time. It is easy to see why the Heat prefer it, which is remained the front office’s clear preference, even with DeMar DeRozan and Bradley Beal still on the market.
It is also easy to see why Dallas hates it.
Dallas keeps holding out for a trade
The Mavericks’ position has not budged all month. Speaking on a Bleacher Report livestream this week, NBA insider Jake Fischer reported that Dallas has been consistent in wanting an actual return for Thompson rather than releasing him into free agency.
“The word has been consistent, though, that Dallas does not want to buy out Klay Thompson,” Fischer said, adding that the Mavericks have no appetite for watching him walk away for nothing.
Fischer explained the logic behind that stance as well. Dallas believes the roster it has assembled around No. 1 overall pick Cooper Flagg can hang around the play-in picture in the Western Conference next season, which means Thompson still holds value to the Mavericks as either a contributor or a trade chip.
Fischer even sketched the outline of a deal that works on paper, pointing to Jovic as a rough salary match and noting that Miami had been willing to discuss the young forward in trade conversations even before the Antetokounmpo deal came together.
Whether Dallas actually wants Jovic and the four-year contract he signed this offseason is a separate question that no reporting has answered. The 23-year-old averaged 7.3 points, 3.3 rebounds and 2.2 assists per game across 47 appearances last season, and his role in Miami became harder to project once Antetokounmpo and Portis joined the frontcourt.
The competition is real
If the standoff were strictly between Miami’s patience and Dallas’s asking price, the Heat could comfortably wait until training camp. The complication is that other contenders have entered the picture.
Reporting on ESPN’s “NBA Today” on Wednesday, Shams Charania said that “Klay is the Heat’s number one priority right now to acquire,” while noting that several championship-contending teams are monitoring the situation and that both a trade and an eventual buyout remain on the table.
Charania’s framing matters, because a one-team market rewards Miami’s waiting game and a multi-team market punishes it. Every additional suitor gives Dallas more reason to hold its price, and some of those suitors may have cleaner matching salary or draft capital the Heat cannot offer without touching pieces they consider untouchable.
What Thompson would give this roster
None of this pursuit makes sense without acknowledging what Thompson no longer is.
Per Basketball-Reference, the five-time All-Star posted career lows nearly across the board in 2025-26, averaging 11.7 points, 2.1 rebounds and 1.4 assists in 21.7 minutes per game while making just eight starts in 69 appearances. His 39.3 percent overall shooting was also a career worst.
The number Miami cares about survived the decline. Thompson still hit 38.3 percent of his 3-point attempts — on heavy volume, with nearly three-quarters of his shots coming from deep — and his career mark of 40.9 percent from long range is the kind of gravity the current roster simply does not have.
The Heat built this offseason around Antetokounmpo and Bam Adebayo, two stars who attack the paint and thrive when defenses cannot load up inside. A four-time champion who requires no on-ball reps, sprints off screens and forces defenders to chase him 30 feet from the rim is close to a perfect complementary piece, even in a reduced role.
That is why the price gap matters so much. Acquiring Thompson through a buyout costs the Heat a midlevel slot and nothing else. Acquiring him through a trade costs a 23-year-old the organization just committed to for four more seasons, and for a front office with very little spending flexibility left, the difference between those two prices is enormous.
The risk in waiting
The Heat’s plan has one obvious vulnerability: It depends entirely on Dallas blinking, and Dallas faces no deadline to blink. The Mavericks can carry Thompson into the season, showcase him, and shop him at the trade deadline in February if nothing materializes sooner.
Miami, meanwhile, would be holding open roster spots and midlevel money into training camp for a player who may never become available on the terms the front office wants.
There is also the DeRozan question. The Heat have kept other veteran options warm, and the interest in Thompson predates LeBron James’ decision entirely, but every week spent waiting on Thompson is a week in which those alternatives can sign elsewhere.
For now, the situation is a genuine standoff. Miami has identified its target, its price and its mechanism. Dallas has rejected the mechanism.
Until one side moves, the most important development of the Heat’s remaining offseason is the one that has not happened yet — and based on Thursday’s reporting, the front office is fully prepared to keep it that way.
