Miami Heat: A dark horse team to acquire Anthony Davis this summer?

The developments in Boston and Los Angeles over the past few months could allow the Miami Heat to swoop in and acquire Anthony Davis this summer

There has been a prevailing thought around the league within the past year that Anthony Davis would end up being traded to the Boston Celtics or Los Angeles Lakers this summer. In fact, ESPN conducted a forecast panel where they asked their NBA staff to predict Anthony’s next team. The Celtics received 61.1 percent of the vote to the Lakers’ 27.8 percent.

However, one can argue that certain developments over the last few months hurt the Celtics and Lakers ability to trade for Anthony Davis this summer. For instance, the Celtics are willing to include Jayson Tatum in the package for Davis if Kyrie Irving decides to sign a long-term contract with the organization this summer.

Unfortunately, there is a growing sentiment that Kyrie is going to leave Boston to sign with the New York Knicks:

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"“The belief is that Durant will only join the Knicks if another high-level free agent agrees to sign with the Knicks as well,” Isola writes. “The most likely candidate is the Celtics’ Kyrie Irving, who coincidentally won a championship in Cleveland as Robin to LeBron’s Batman. He could fill that same role at MSG."

As a consequence, the Celtics would not include Tatum in the deal because they risk having a bare-bones roster if Anthony left after the season.

On the other hand, the Lakers plan to acquire Anthony Davis is on the verge of disintegrating because of a multitude of factors. The team’s original plan was to trade 2-3 pieces of their young core and draft picks in exchange for Davis.

Unfortunately, most of their young core has experienced health issues over the last few months. For example, Lonzo Ball suffered a grade 3 sprain on his left ankle during a road game against the Rockets on January 19th, causing him to miss the final 34 games of the regular season.

The ankle is the second significant lower-body injury in his short career as he was sidelined for the last seven games of his rookie season with a bruised left knee. It was later revealed his left knee injury worsen as he underwent surgery to repair a torn meniscus in the summer of 2018.

Approximately two months after Lonzo’s ankle injury, the Lakers were forced to shut Brandon Ingram down for the final 18 games of the season because of a blood clot in his right shoulder. Two weeks later, the team announced that Josh Hart underwent surgery to remove debris in his right patellar tendon forcing him to miss the last 10 games of this season.

Therefore, one would assume that organizations around the league want to see if they can stay healthy for an extended period before trading for them. Not only do the Lakers have to deal with the questions about the health of their young core; but they also must find a new president of basketball operations as Magic Johnson stepped down earlier this week.

Magic held an impromptu press conference to state that he was stepping down because the job was restricting his personality:

"“The fines and the tampering and the this and the that, I can’t help young men who want me to help them, or I can’t tweet out. Like Russell Westbrook, that was a great feat the other day. I couldn’t even tweet it out to say, ‘Hey, congratulations.’ If I had did that, everyone would have said, ‘He’s tampering.’ I don’t like that. I like to be free.”"

Magic’s resignation will force the organization to spend a few weeks searching for a new president. Once they hire a president, the organization might experience a change in strategy depending on their basketball philosophy.

For instance, the new president may want to surround LeBron James with shooters instead of acquiring Anthony Davis (How the Lakers can build a championship contender).

Therefore, the uncertainty surrounding the futures of these organizations pushes the New York Knicks towards the forefront of the Anthony Davis sweepstakes. The Knicks are said to be interested in trading for Davis if they can win the NBA draft lottery.

However, if New York comes up short in the lottery, it automatically takes them out of the Anthony Davis sweepstakes as the team does not have a young player on the roster that would capture the interest of New Orleans. Consequently, it would limit the number of teams that are willing to give multiple young players to players to acquire a one year rental in Davis.

One of those teams is the Miami Heat as Pat Reilly has intimated that he will pursue Davis as he is currently the only max contract worthy player scheduled to be a free agent in 2020:

"In 2020, we’ll have a lot of room. We’ll also have the possibility to have enough room to go after two max contracts and we’re going to do that. So we’re planning that 2020 will be the room year. We’re very fluid, we’re very on top of it, and we are a destination place.”"

Furthermore, 73-year-old Pat Reilly has said that he wants to do everything possible to win a championship before he leaves the team. He stated this during a sit-down interview with ESPN’s Dan Le Batard:

". At my age you gotta have something to chase. I’m still chasing another championship with Erik [Spoelstra] and with Micky [Arison] and with the team. How we’re gonna get there I don’t know. But we’re gonna get there again one day. I believe that.”"

The combination of these factors would make him willing to give up most or if not all of the organization’s young core to acquire Anthony Davis. A potential trade can be Justise Winslow, Bam Adebayo and James Johnson for Davis.

This package can only be matched by the Denver Nuggets if they are willing to give up one of Gary Harris or Jamal Murray, Michael Porter Jr and a future first-round pick. Unfortunately, the future of the Nuggets front office is uncertain as their president of basketball operations, Tim Connelly has become the top target to take over for Ernie Grunfeld in Washington. According to Fred Katz of the Athletic:

"Many around the NBA believe the Wizards have centered in on Nuggets president of bball ops Tim Connelly as their top target to replace Ernie Grunfeld."

If Tim goes on to accept the job in Washington,  Denver will have to spend a couple of weeks trying to figure out whether to promote a new president from within the organization or hire an outside candidate.

Therefore, the Heat are the only team that could give the New Orleans Pelicans a consistent offer throughout the spring and summer. Although Pat would leap at the opportunity to acquire Anthony Davis, the trade would end up backfiring due to the injury history of Davis (as i have mentioned in another article) .