Podcast: How much will Oladipo help Heat? And a dive into quickly shrinking buyout market
The Victor Oladipo era is on hold for the time being, which is good news because we’re just now getting to our trade-deadline reaction on the Heat Check podcast.
It’s a good thing we had a full week to digest things, though, because it was a busy deadline for the Miami Heat and the entire NBA.
Oladipo is with the Heat. Kyle Lowry is still with the Toronto Raptors. The Orlando Magic might not have any players left. David Wilson and Anthony Chiang, the Miami Herald’s Heat beat writer, break it all down a week later starting, of course, with Oladipo.
We’re still waiting to see what the wing will look like when he finally suits up for Miami, but we’re more bullish about his prospects than we were last week, when we just assumed the Heat would have to part with combo guard Tyler Herro or wing Duncan Robinson to land him.
It starts with the defense and the potential for Miami to roll out a devastating defensive lineup with Oladipo suiting up alongside forwards Jimmy Butler, Bam Adebayo, Trevor Ariza and Andre Iguodala. It fits a trend the Heat has prioritized in the last year: Miami knows it has the potential to have a great offense and now president Pat Riley has put together the personnel to win with defense, too.
His ceiling, however, will depend on his offense. The two-time All-Star gives the Heat the sort of downhill scoring threat it has lacked this year and his potential fit next to Adebayo and Butler is fascinating.
Miami probably isn’t done, either. We wrap things up by talking about the NBA’s booming buyout market, which has sent post players Blake Griffin and LaMarcus Aldridge to the Brooklyn Nets, center Andre Drummond to the Los Angeles Lakers and post player DeMarcus Cousins to the Los Angeles Clippers.
The Heat’s options are dwindling, but they’re not totally gone yet. Let us make the case for post player Thon Maker — and humor Chiang while he makes the ill-advised case to consider Sacramento Kings post player Hassan Whiteside.
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