Miami Heat linked to 2 top free agents, including Gordon Hayward

With free agency less than a month away, the Miami Heat are being linked to two topnotch targets, Gordon Hayward and Milos Teodosic.

As is often the case during the time preceding free agency, the Miami Heat find themselves in the thick of speculation. In the past, it has involved names like LeBron James, Chris Bosh and Kevin Durant.

This time around, it’s regarding two of the most highly sought-after players set to become available in the 2017 class of free agents, Gordon Hayward and Milos Teodosic.

Anyone who remotely follows the NBA is familiar with the first name; the second is a bit more mysterious.

Before we get to who Teodosic is, though, we should explain what the new Hayward scuttle is. It came on Friday morning, via ESPN‘s Marc Stein:

What’s more, local beat legend Barry Jackson further expounded on the report in his own column for the Miami Herald shortly thereafter. In his own words:

"“An associate of Hayward said several weeks ago that he hadn’t heard Miami was particularly on Hayward’s radar and viewed Boston as the next-best option if he left Utah, which obviously wants to keep him. But a source connected with Hayward said this morning that Hayward now has legitimate interest in the Heat…Pat Riley can be very convincing and it won’t be surprising if he gets a meeting with Hayward. And if Riley gets a player in a room, anything can happen.”"

Take it for what it’s worth obviously, since free agent speculation is just that: speculation. Nonetheless, Stein and Jackson are about as reliable as you can get on such matters. If they’re saying Hayward has interest in Miami, there’s probably some semblance of truth to it at the very least.

But wait, there’s more!

After Stein’s tweet got Heat fans’ blood pressure rising, another one came — this time, regarding the best point guard currently playing overseas, Teodosic. It came from Andrey Kartashov, a reporter for the TASS, one of the biggest news networks in Russia.

So who is Teodosic?

The Serbian floor general is known mostly for his incomparable passing abilities and outstanding floor vision, often highlighted in grainy footage from the Russian league he currently presides in. (I mean, seriously, who does stuff like this?)

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And at the ripe age of 30, he’s finally ready to make a move to the NBA. Teodosic himself has written, however, that the situation has to be just right: mostly, he wants the chance to suit up for a competitive franchise and for the salary to be up to his liking. Well, the Heat check off both of those boxes. They missed the playoffs by just one game and are about to have a lot of money to spend with Bosh coming off their books.

The fit makes even more sense because Miami could use a backup point guard. Tyler Johnson and Josh Richardson are miscast as backup 1s; Erik Spoelstra’s offense statistically gets worse when they’re in the game for Goran Dragic.

For CSKA Moscow in 2016-17, Teodosic averaged 16.1 points and 6.8 assists per game on 44.4 percent shooting and 38.1 percent from three. It’s likely he would do a better job running the offense when Dragic sits than either Johnson or Richardson have to this point.

Next: 5 potential Gordon Hayward landing spots

Whether either report actually end up coming true or not, we won’t know for a few weeks. Regardless, it’s fun to speculate. Plus, we should never count out the Heat when it comes to landing top-level free agents. Like Barry Jackson said, Riley can be very convincing.