Where does the Miami Heat stand at the All-Star break of this NBA season?
Right here: At the crossroads of Hope and Desperation, but close enough to desperate to look at a soon-to-available Kevin Love and see a savior. That’s where.
Love is a five-time all-star, but not lately. Today he is 34 and the guy you go shopping for in the buyout bargain bin. That’s because the Cleveland Cavaliers reportedly are about to strike a parting-ways agreement with the veteran who has served them long and well but had become a reserve and more recently tumbled out of the nine-man rotation to the lonely end of a good team’s bench.
The Athletic reported Thursday that the last guy left from the Cavs’ championship Big 3 is finalizing a contract buyout that will make him an unrestricted free agent prior to the NBA’s March 1 deadline to sign with a team and be eligible for the playoffs. The outlet also reported the Heat will be a likely candidate to fill Miami’s open roster spot.
To Heat fans, though, Love is a “name” player whom Pat Riley has liked for years. His name had been linked to Miami in offseasons and trade deadlines past.
And to the Heat team, he would fill a big need as a 6-8 power forward and center to back up or pair with Bam Adebayo. Miami needed a big man, and this one would come cheap, likely for the veteran minimum.
I would expect Miami to pounce.
Love is no whale. Might have been close to that 10 years ago, when he was a 26-points, 12-boards force. These days he is the wise old porpoise, if you will pardon our reach for the ocean metaphor.
He is averaging 8.5 points and 6.8 rebounds in 20 minutes per game. That’s decent production. He isn’t washed. There is a second-wind upside to Love if Heat coach Erik Spoelstra finds a fit just right.
The larger point in this is that Miami needs something, some help, a situation of its own design.
The trio of Jimmy Butler, Adebayo and Tyler Herro has been good, each averaging in the 20-to-22-point range. Yet Miami sits in seventh place in the Eastern Conference at the break, in the bottom tier of playoff pace.
The 32-27 record despite a plethora of injuries actually is 11th best of the 30 teams. But Miami ranks 20th in plus-minus points, with a defense giving up the second-fewest points but an offense dead-last in team scoring.
The Heat leads the league in most wins or losses by five points of fewer. It is a team relentlessly competitive, but not one to dominate.
It also is a team desperate for experience to back up Adabayo, especially a stretch-five guy. Heat had Dewayne Dedmon but dumped him and the bad season he was having to gain luxury tax space before the trade deadline.
But Heat management made no other moves before the recent deadline. Just as Miami had a disconcertingly inactive offseason that proved foreboding.
A year ago the Heat had the best record in the East, took Boston to seven games in the conference finals and chose to run it back with essentially the same team. Well, by “chose” we mean did not make any notable moves.
The strategy was a risk. It did not take in account other teams in the East dealing and getting better while Miami stuck with the same hand.
At this trade deadline, Kevin Durant, long coveted and sought-after by Riley, was dealt by Brooklyn to Phoenix — the knee-jerk outcry by many Heat fans that Riley had failed again to land his whale. (As if such an expedition doesn’t require the other side agreeing.)
So here we are at midseason.
With a Heat team just pretty good, a team that hasn’t created any championship-hope sparks, a team with something missing.
A team looking for Love in a buyout bargain bin.
