Miami Heat: Latest on Dame Lillard, more, as moratorium ends | Five on the Floor

All right, welcome to the latest episode of Five on the Floor on the Five Reasons Sports Network. Thanks for joining us on your favorite podcast app, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts. Also, the Five Reasons YouTube channel. Make sure you hit like, subscribe, turn notifications on. Also, check us out on Off the Floor. You're getting stuff before anybody else does. If you subscribe there, it's free for the first week. $3.05 a month. That's $3.05 per month. Probably need to update that screenshot there. We'll do that here shortly. winnow.app backslash Off the Floor. winnow.app backslash Off the Floor. That's how you sign up. Also, check out the great sponsors of the Five Reasons Sports Network. If you need a mortgage, we know mortgage rates are going up. So go with a professional. He'll get you the best rate possible and he can do it even if your credit score is not higher than 620. Go to 954-651-2057. That's our guy Arash. Mortgagebyarash.com. Based in Sunrise. Can service the entire area. Again, that's mortgagebyarash.com. 954-651-2057. He's got all the programs for you. You can go through it with you carefully. And again, based in Sunrise, but he can service the entire area. Mortgagebyarash.com. And now, today's episode. Welcome to Five on the Floor, a daily insider show on the Miami Heat and the NBA, featuring Ethan Skolnick, Greg Sylvander, and Alex Toledo, plus others from the Five Reasons Sports Network. All right, welcome back to Five on the Floor. Here's today's floor plan. I'm going to give you the time that we're recording this. We don't typically do that, but things are so fluid right now, we want to make sure we're giving you the latest information. And as other events happen, we may podcast again. So this is going to be a short pod, just with the latest from the day. I've got Alex Toledo. You can follow him at Tropical Blanket. I've got Greg Sylvander. You can follow him at Greg Sylvander. We also did a playback earlier today. We appreciate you joining us because we're going to cite some things that we talked about on that. So let's get to the latest. Here's what's official for the Miami Heat right now and what is not. And then we will get to what's happening with Dame Lillard, because all of this ties together. What is official? Kevin Love is officially re-signed with the Miami Heat. We're awaiting his conference call. Probably will happen in the next 24 hours or so. We will let you know when that occurs and we will try to cover that. Of course, we knew Gabe Vincent was gone, so that has happened. Victor Oladipo has been officially traded now. The Heat have released, put out a press release for that. He's been traded for a trade exception of $9.5 million. He's also been traded along with two second round picks, 2029 and 2030. Why does that matter? Well, first, there are players that could fit snugly into that trade exception. A guy like Royce O'Neal, somebody we've talked about a little bit up with the Nets, could be a possibility for that. So we'll get into that. If the Heat use it, they've got basically a year to use it. We know that they usually let these things expire. But look, they did put out on the release he's been traded for a trade exception. That makes it seem like they're considering using it, in my view. So we'll see what happens there. The Max Struce trade, as we're speaking now, the Heat have not put out a release on that. I know there have been reports, including from Struce's own agency, that it's been done. But there's nothing that we have that's official. That may matter. We will get into that as we go forward. Joe Harris, not a Heat thing, but he has been officially traded. And so that was one of the things that our guy Yossi Gosselin, who was on with us yesterday, spoke about. That could possibly be folded into a bigger trade for Dame Lillard. So that's not going to happen. So that and the Oladipo trades are not going to happen. They're happening, but they're not going to get folded into this bigger trade. But let's get to the Dame stuff, because Barry Jackson has spoken to Aaron Goodwin, the agent for... Well, there's two things going on. One is there's a lot of crying on the timeline from people from Boston and New York, people like Justin Termini. They feel it's obviously because they've hit sort of the Miami doesn't deserve this phase or Dame isn't that good phase. So this is the stages of grief we're getting towards the end. But Barry has tweeted and spoke to Aaron Goodwin, who's Dame Lillard's agent. And I said this on playback. Aaron Goodwin is not someone who represents everybody. If you know Aaron Goodwin's history, he's represented a lot of guys in the Pacific Northwest. So Portland and prior to that, Seattle, his number one most famous client, I guess Dame Stoudemire was one. So there's a relationship there, obviously in Portland. But his biggest one was Gary Payton. The Miami Heat are very familiar with Aaron through their courtship of Gary Payton through the years until they finally got him. Aaron is a type who is known as he plays hardball for his clients, which is what agents should do. He came out and spoke to Barry Jackson and he said, again, it's Miami. Dame only wants to go to Miami. So first you had reporters who were close to Dame saying it, but now it's coming directly from the agent. And us. And us. But we've had people on the podcast like Aaron Fentress, who covers the Blazers, who said that his agent could make this hard on people. So now that is officially happening. So again, this is like stage eight of 10 of where we're at now. But the other thing that came out, and I am going to pat myself on the back for this one, because I said on playback that I expect this to happen in Vegas. And the reason that I expect this to happen in Vegas is because everybody's in Vegas. And that's why most of these deals happen there. Sacramento, not all the teams are there. So everybody gets to Vegas and then you start having these conversations, whether it's in hotel lobbies or at the Blackjack table or the back room at the Thomas and Max Center or anywhere in between. You start to have these conversations and that's when you realize that you have deals with others or you really don't. And that's where I believe that at some point the Portland Trailblazers are going to come to the conclusion that there's nothing else out there for them. And Adam Himelschback, who covers, this is not some local yokel, he covers the Boston Celtics for the Boston Globe. He tweeted that the Celtics are not in on Dame Lillard. So ESPN wants that to be true, but the guy who covers the Celtics on a day-to-day basis is saying it is not true, at this stage at least, okay? So basically what I was trying to get at with this is I expect the Portland Trailblazers and Joe Cronin and his team are going to get to Las Vegas, they're going to have conversations with other teams, then they're going to have conversations with Andy and Pat and others, and they're going to recognize there's nothing else out for them, and they're going to basically be like, look, help us save face here, okay? And then the Miami Heat are going to end up giving them something that maybe they didn't offer at the beginning, but they've always been willing to give, because that's how Pat and others, when you play poker, that's how you play the game, right? And then Woj is going to tweet, and I tweeted it. So if you guys want to copy and paste this, because this is going to be the Woj tweet, ready? When this comes out, because Woj wants the story from Joe Cronin, it's obvious, okay? So here we go. Quote me on this, Greg. Are you ready? How many words am I going to get right here? This comes from Wojspn. This hasn't come yet, it's coming. With all stacked against him, brilliant new Portland Trailblazers general manager Joe Cronin was able to extract, fill in the blank, Nikola Jovic, I think it's going to be Jaime Jaquez, Traylon Martin, 2082 first round pick, whatever it is, birdie, from the Miami Heat, and still do right by franchise icon Damian Lillard, and send him where he wanted to go. Period, end quote, send tweet. I think that's where we're headed. Well done. But he'll do that, but Shams and Haynes will have already tweeted that the deals are agreed on. No, I'm going to win this. What are we betting? I will bet you whatever you want to bet that Shams or Haynes tweets it before Woj does. I don't think so. And here's why. What should we bet? Listeners, come to us after we hear this episode, come to us about what we should bet. Okay, here's why I don't think that happens, because Woj is playing this game like he always plays to get the story at the end, because that's what matters in that world. Being wrong all the way along and shilling doesn't matter. It's the end game that matters, okay? Haynes is telling you Dame side, right? Shams is telling you Dame side. And guys like Spears and Amick, they're honest brokers in all this stuff, okay? The guy who's going to tell you, the guy who's going to get it is Woj, because he's been playing the game to get it. And then you'll get Dame talking to Haynes and Shams, probably Haynes first, about why he made the decision. And I bet you, and Chris won't tell me if I text him on this, I bet you there's already a video ready to go. I will bet you, can I go further? Because then I really win. I bet you there's a video ready to go between Dame and Chris Haynes, where that's going to drop as soon as after Woj announces the trade, that is going to be the over the top move to say he won this, which is going to be Dame explaining why, saying goodbye to Portland in the nicest way possible, and then explaining why he went to Miami. What are we betting? We will let the listeners decide. That is fun, because I've always thought it's going to be Haynes and Shams, and you're the opposite, and I understand where you're going with that. It'll be fun to see how it plays out. As long as Dame's in Miami, I'll be okay, no matter what. Alex, can you break the tie? How do you think this is playing out? This is playing out with Dame in Miami, right? Do you have any doubts about that right now? Do you have any doubts about it? We're in the phase right now of counting chickens before they hatch. I completely understand the momentum is heading towards Dame to Miami, but you know how I feel about this. You know how antsy I get, because of how many times it's happened before. Again, I know it's different. Dame is pushing for Miami. Everything is signaling he's going to end up here, but I'm going to say as of right now, to counterbalance the energy that you guys are putting out there, I'm going to say, no, I don't feel good about it, because I don't want to get into that phase where we're already talking about not if, but when he gets here. Not only that, but now we're putting bets on who's going to tweet it out first. All of this is making me a little bit nervous. Nervous, but you know we're right. Oh, and you went mute on that? Nervously, but you know we're right. You're still mute. Okay. Well, I have takes, but I think you should probably go to our next sponsor. All right, let's go to the next sponsor. We'll get to the takes on the other side. 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That's 844-403-2550, or check them out on the web at CIAgency.net. That's just one A in there, CIAgency.net. And now, the spy report. I love that music. All right, now the spy report. All right, so do we want to make the spy report takes here, Greg? It could be, because I truly think that this is spy report worthy. When you see Oklahoma City and Miami agree to the deal that nets them a trade exception and Oladipo's salary goes to Oklahoma City, and those second round picks come to Miami, which it appears one will get routed in the Max Struess deal. We don't know how it's all going to play out. We'll see. The point is, is that that deal was made final today. So we speculated how that would be the team that would be involved in this Dame trade. No, it's not going to be Oklahoma City. But Max Struess and San Antonio, who has cap space still, as well as the Cleveland Cavaliers, they did not make their trade final. So the spy report to me is the available teams for Portland, Miami, and let's say a Brooklyn to recruit into this deal now appear to be San Antonio and Cleveland. I know that changes by the minute and probably this will end up being a three team deal. They'll simplify it and just get it done at some point. That's that's kind of where my gut leans, even though we were talked about such big, robust trades. But for now, let's exit Oklahoma City from the conversation. Although we did hear that they were interested in here and that's legitimate, credible sources telling us that information. I think at this point, it's much more likely that with the Struess deal pending, the spy report is San Antonio and Cleveland loom as teams to be added to the Dame Lillard mega team deal. And also something that would confirm that to some degree. Originally, we thought that maybe a second round pick that came from Cleveland in the Struess deal would be flipped to Oklahoma City, but it wasn't. You're right. It's two Miami picks, 29 and 30. So again, put the pieces together if you want. One thing on our end that we did report on off the floor is that teams that have shown some interest in Caleb Martin, there may be others, but to our knowledge, Portland, which we obviously know that that's a bit of a sticking point. I still don't understand why Portland would be that interested in him considering that he can become a free agent after one year. And again, they're going younger. He's a ready to win player right now, obviously just almost won the Eastern Conference Finals MVP. But the two other teams that have shown interest in Caleb or Brooklyn, right? So that could be somebody who's flipped over there or OKC, right? Those are the other two that we've discussed and could be possibilities to fill out a trade. And we still talk about OKC unlocking protections, possibly maybe a third time's a charm here. OKC might've been like, we don't know this. Again, it's not a report, but might've been like, well, we're not going to do it here for the Oladipo thing. Give us your picks to take this, even though it's inspiring to take this contract off our hands, but maybe we'll do it next time if something else comes up. So that we have heard those three teams that expressed some interest in Caleb. The other thing that's come up, this name, Josh Christopher keeps popping up. And I saw a report today that Memphis doesn't have room for him on the roster, right? So that's another name to continue to watch. He could get waived or they try to loop him into that deal. He's a small salary. There was also talk of maybe Dario Saric holding his horses on his deal and maybe thinking about maybe it sounded the way they positioned it in the article. It looked like maybe he would either get rerouted to Miami and have second thoughts on Golden State or somehow get to Golden State by being in that big trade. The other name that I wanted to mention on the show before we wrap is that I did receive a confirmation from a source that a name to watch if the Heat are forced to, and the Heat don't want to do this, as surprisingly as it sounds, they don't want to trade Duncan, lose Max, and trade Tyler because that's their shooters. And so if they do lose all their shooters, they're going to be looking for replacements. Jay Rich can do that to a degree, but not at high, high volume. Landry Shamit is the name that came up. He makes $10 million. So they are going to have to get creative in how to get him. He's now a wizard. He was moved there in the Phoenix Suns deal for Bradley Beal. So that's just a name to watch. I know that it's nothing that we can necessarily, that you would see happen now because the Dame stuff has to, the dust has to settle there first. But I think Miami is going to be looking around the league for guys in weird situations that can fill a need. And Shamit has shown he can shoot threes at times, although he has proved that he can also be played off the court in the playoffs. So we'll see how that develops, but that's just another name for Heat fans to monitor. Suns fans were enormously frustrated with him, but- Every good team he's ever been on. Exactly. All right. So yeah, so we'll close with you here, Alex. And again, we're going to do more as we go forward. But the three names that kind of got dropped here as we talked about, Royce O'Neal, to you, is he worth, what that would mean from a tax perspective, is he worth $9.5 million to the Heat? You know me, you know me. I'm always going to, I'm a proponent of spending into the tax. It's not my money. I know it's easier for me to say it, but I'm a proponent of spending into the tax if you're in a championship contending window. So yeah, Royce O'Neal, obviously you would prefer Dory and Finney Smith, but Royce would be a great get. The Shamit thing, I'm into it. I was joking about how kind of good teams acquire him and then end up letting him walk or trade him. And I think there was a thing that's, it might still be going where like every few, the last few teams he's been on that are all these good teams, they end up like getting eliminated in the second round. It's like a weird trend that happens with whatever team Landry Shamit is on. So I don't like that, you know, omen about it, but I do like him as a replacement if and when they have to send out their shooters. The Josh Christopher thing is interesting that it sounds, that's not like a typical Heat name that you would hear as far as like the way that they fill out a roster. It's a young guy who wasn't really able to develop with Houston. So kind of adding just another young dude into your program. I don't know, I don't know that much about his skill set, so I would be interested to see like what they see in him. And I'm not trying to say it in a bad way, but that's a little bit intriguing. And the Sarge thing makes sense that we've heard the interest in the past with the Heat there. He kind of fits into the mold of, you know, rotation, big man who can shoot, who can make decisions with the ball whenever he has to, just a pretty smart player. You know, I, I like, I like where their, where their brain is at. And it does sound like Sarge is kind of waiting on this Heat thing to, to play out. Cause I remember there was a report before free agency started that he was like extremely likely to sign with the Warriors. And the Warriors have no holdups. If you wanted to sign in there, you would, it would probably, probably be done already. Alex just muted himself at the best part again. That's the way to go. I don't hear you. It's all right. We got it. We understand it. Look, we're probably 10 minutes away from starting another episode. Thanks to Alex. Thanks to Greg. Thanks to our sponsors, Closure Investigative Agency, mortgagebuyerage.com, sign up for off the floor, prize picks, use the code five F I V E, keep us in business, please. So you got your initial deposit matched up to a hundred dollars. I just want to say, you guys need to come up with what the bet is. I am saying Woj breaks this story. You're taking the field, Greg? The field, but Shams and Haynes specifically. Okay. And maybe it should be that you and I have to each sing something on a live show. That's not happening. You know what I'll have to do? I'll have to actually hook in a mic. How about that? Well, that should be the bare minimum of your job, Ethan. We shouldn't have to bet for that. Oh no, you're talking. All right, we got to go. Be back soon.