Why Miami Heat Should Avoid Trading For Goran Dragic

All indications are that Goran Dragic will not be a member of the Phoenix Suns once the 2015 NBA trade deadline is over. Dragic made it clear Wednesday that he requested a trade and badly wants out of Phoenix and the Suns are reportedly talking to multiple teams about a deal.

At this point, the only mystery is where Dragic will end up.

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A possible destination for the talented point guard appears to be the Miami Heat. Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo Sports has reported that Dragic gave the Suns a list of three preferred destinations, with the Heat being among them (the New York Knicks and Los Angeles Lakers were the other two).

That Dragic is up for grabs and wants to come to the Heat might seem like a godsend for a team whose point guard play has been dreadful all season long.

However, the best move for the Heat is to avoid getting involved with the Dragic sweepstakes.

While Dragic would make Miami a better team, he also isn’t a big enough difference maker to change the fortunes of Miami’s season.

Any Heat trade for Dragic would likely involve the Heat having to get rid of Luol Deng.

A core of Dwyane Wade, Chris Bosh, Hassan Whiteside and Dragic is certainly interesting, but a deal for Dragic wouldn’t rid Miami of current issues such as a lack of depth — in fact, the Heat’s depth would likely worsen considering the Suns presumably will ask for more than Deng — and they would create new issues such as a hole at the small forward position.

Deng hasn’t been the huge free agency hit the Heat envisioned he’d be when they signed him this summer, but without him Miami would be starting Danny Granger at the 3. Deng’s still a solid player and Miami would feel his absence.

Even with Dragic, the Heat aren’t definitively contenders in the Eastern Conference and that’s a huge issue considering what trading for the point guard would mean for the future of the franchise.

Dragic is a free agent after this season and any team that deals for the 28-year-old can offer him a five-year, $100 million contract, a deal the point guard surely will seek.

Not only are there serious concerns about whether Dragic is even worth that money (his per-game averages this season are comparable to Darren Collison‘s), but signing him to a lucrative contract in 2015 would completely blow up the Heat’s plan to improve in 2016.

After losing LeBron James in free agency this past offseason, Miami purposefully made itself extremely financially flexible for the 2016 offseason — only Chris Bosh and Josh McRoberts are on the books for the 2016-17 season — which will feature a number of big-name free agents such as Dwight Howard and Kevin Durant.

Signing Dragic to an expensive contract would absolve the Heat of much of its flexibility. Such a move becomes even more problematic when considering that Whiteside is set to become a free agent in 2016 and he could very well command a max contract if he continues to play at the level he has the past few months.

That could then put the Heat in a situation where they leave the summer of 2016 with nearly all of its money invested in Bosh, Whiteside, Dragic and Wade, which isn’t good enough to win a title now let alone in two years.

The 2014-15 NBA season surely hasn’t gone like the Heat expected it to, but that doesn’t mean Miami should risk its future in order to add a player that simply isn’t the type of game-changer this franchise needs in order to return to glory.

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Goran Dragic Trade Rumors: Why Miami Heat Should Avoid Trading For Him

By Sam Richmond | Feb 19, 2015

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