The Miami Heat's precedents for Dame Lillard Zo, Shaq, Butler, more | Five on the Floor

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They do the repairs which we know you need something, you know, the streets of South Florida mentioned five reasons to mark in his team and you'll get a discount huge Miami sports fans as well. Check them out on the you break. We'll fix Instagram page too. You can see all the work that they do. So it's you break. We'll fix.com mention five reasons. And now today's episode. Yeah, I'm on the floor. Right? Check the score. Hustle hard. Couple scars. We're in trouble. Fraud. Just like what they say. You in trouble. Y'all check the floor plan. Got it. All day. Y'all seen the block. Stop the one here and Pat. We trust. It's about having guts. We're here to bring the heat. Y'all can hang it up. 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 reason Sports Network. Welcome back to five on the floor. Here's today's floor plan. I'm Ethan Skolnick and follow me Nathan J. Skolnick in a five reason sports. I got Greg Sylvander. You can follow him at Greg Sylvander. Look for more episodes as we go forward here some from obviously what's going on still with the heat out in Las Vegas, but also of course Dame Dame Dame Dame Dame. So we're going to do our own Dame episode today and McGregor and I are going to do is we're going to go back in time a little bit because the Miami Heat and I've said this all the time since Pat Riley came there a vulture organization and I mean that in the most positive possible way they wait for a player to become disgruntled and then using whatever the methods are best at the time. So whether it's cap space or again kind of, you know, a player forcing his way out to your situation so that you increase your leverage. That's how they built this thing. We can talk about the draft Dwayne Wade Tyler hero Bam out of bio being the three kind of major additions Karan Butler was another of them over the years during the Pat Riley era, but really what Pat has done has been to take other teams really good players because those players were not happy where they were and so we go all the way back to the very beginning of this Greg and Alonzo morning and we're going to go forward from there and take a look at how some of these situations are different or the same from the pursuit of Dame Lillard. And I think it might alleviate some concerns that Heat fans have. So let's start here. The number one addition, Greg, to build this franchise was Alonzo morning. If you don't get Alonzo morning as the foundation piece, the Miami Heat are still in a relevant organization. OK, I don't know if Pat doesn't get him just like Nick Saban didn't get Drew Brees. If Pat doesn't get Alonzo morning. OK, and even though Glenn Rice was a good player, I don't know what Pat builds in South Florida. He had a guy in Alonzo morning who fit his profile in terms of what he believed in the work and he helped him build this organization. Here's the thing about the Zoe trade. OK, Zoe was a lot younger than Dame, 25 years old. Zoe was unhappy with his contract situation. It wasn't necessarily about about the rest of the team around because they had Larry Johnson, they had Kendall Gill. But here's the one parallel I want to draw for Heat fans who are freaked out about how long this is going to take to get Dame Lillard. I will just remind you that Alonzo morning did not join the Miami Heat in a trade until he rejected a contract offer from the Charlotte Hornets on November 3rd of 1995. November 3rd. So the Miami Heat waited this thing out, took it all the way up to the end into the season. Actually, I think I can't recall now at this point whether, you know, what exact date than I because I could have looked it up. So Zoe played in the first regular season game of the year. They played the Cleveland Cavaliers at home. I only remember it because I was there and I was so excited to see Zoe in person. So they did it. It was right before the regular season, to your point. It was literally like the days before opening night. And there were rumors, Greg, and there was a lot of conversation, not through Twitter because it didn't exist, but then so wanted out and then so could possibly be available. And Pat struck, but he but he he struck when the time was right. And he ended up giving up Glenn Rice and a whole bunch of nothing to get him. And the one thing about that that we should just when we talk about leverage and why teams are doing what they're doing as we go back in time here, Charlotte had a decision to make because he didn't want to get paid there. And Miami took the chance of. And at the time this was talked about, I remember reading it in the Herald when it would get thrown in my front yard back then in North Miami that like the heat had to convince Alonzo to sign his next contract. And like basically Riley had worked that out once Zoe arrived and it was not a big deal. But I remember them talking about like Zoe could walk like that was a chance Miami took in that moment was trading for him without any contract extension and they worked it out and he, you know, eventually got paid. But that was also a sticking point along the way there. And here's why I think this one is important. It's not just the date that he was acquired. But I think what you're mentioning about the contract plays into this. The heat of operated without a net before this is not new. This poker game that they're playing right now goes all the way back to Pat's first season in Miami. This is what they do. They will wait these situations out until they get the terms that they want. And sometimes they will even take a risk without guarantee without guarantee that the player is going to stay. That kind of happened with Goran Dragic. We'll get to that one a little bit later. But they will. They will take this kind of risk. And so the reason I'm bringing this one up is I'm just saying, if your concern is, OK, they're going to wait this out, wait this and then the heat are going to flinch. They haven't typically flinched and they've typically gotten done what they wanted to get done. I know that people are going to mention some free agents, whether it's a Kevin Durant or Gordon Hayward, or even a Williams or some others and players that the heat have missed out on through the years. But typically, when they wait these situations out and take Donovan Mitchell out of this, because they were never getting Donovan Mitchell, the decision to wait is the right one. And the heat end up showing that they had the stronger hand. Let's go. Because, look, Charlotte could have taken so into the season. OK, they could have, but they did. They made the move. All right. So let's get to the next one. And to me, the next move is significant. The next trade of sin is, well, there were two. There were two that were smaller, which is they got Tim Hardaway and Jamal Mashburn kind of on their terms, right? These were diminished assets. They got them on their terms. So we got to go. I think that Shaq, OK? Yeah. And I think when you look at that, Greg, in 2005, to me, Shaq as a player, not as a presence, not as an international celebrity and all that, but as a player is the most similar to Dame at this time. If you look. Absolutely right. And I think if you look at Shaq's numbers the year before he was traded from L.A. and look, there were kids there. He was having issues out there. He actually did ask for a trade. If you but again, I was extension related. He didn't feel he was valued enough, the kind of stuff that Shaq, you know, troubled himself by during his playing career. But if you look at his just offensive metrics, we know that Dame is not the best defender, but offensive metrics, even pace adjusted. Dame Lillard was a better offensive player last year at age 32 than Shaquille O'Neal was in his last year in Los Angeles, which was age 31 slash 32. And so if this narrative out there and this is where I think this one applies. First thing, this narrative out there that maybe, oh, maybe Dame's not as good as this because this is starting to happen now because Miami might get it. He is elite. He is every bit as elite offensively. OK, as Shaquille O'Neal was when he came to Miami and we saw what happened when Shaquille O'Neal came to Miami, they should have gone to the finals and probably won the championship his first year. And they did, even though he was not a huge factor to the same degree. He was his first season when you could have been in the finals, particularly. And he was part of a team, obviously, and an essential part of the team that won the championship. So to me, that's the parallel is that Dame is if Shaq was worth it. Dame is worth it. And also to me, the other parallel is this. The heat stuck to their guns about Dwayne Wade. Now, now look, Caleb Martin is not Dwayne Wade. I understand that. But the heat stuck to their guns about Dwayne Wade. We're going we want Shaq. OK, we'll throw in Koran, which was a significant throw in with Lamar Oden Odom. And obviously, then you take a look at at the contract of Brian Grant, which had to be moved for the trade. But we're going to do this mostly on our terms because we're keeping the guy that we want to keep. And Shaq insisted that they keep that guy. And by the way, just like Dame has insisted certain things, Shaq ultimately got what he wanted, which was to play with Dwayne Wade in Miami. Yeah. And so anything short like I think he fans should just remember this. No matter what, no matter what this trade looks like, if you acquire Dame Lillard and you keep Jimmy Butler and Bam out of bio, you there is no you cannot overpay. That's the first thing. So anything they keep beyond those two guys is gravy and they're going to keep things beyond those two guys. Just it's going to happen. And so it'll just be how much haggling are they're going to are they going to do? Because I do I do think that the one difference here is that there's a wild card with this Portland front office. They appear to be like they like this is their first dance ownership is in a weird place. If I if I've been reading correctly, that's ran in a really weird way. So I just wonder if the ineptitude and inexperience of some of those guys is going to make this process wonky or less like what you would expect to happen. Because the thing was with Shaq is when he requested to trade and he I think he gave them a short list of teams, but really said Miami was the one like they worked and they got a deal done. Like it wasn't it didn't drag out necessarily. Although it could have been August. Was it that it that finally got done? It did. I'm going to check for the trade date on that. But I think it was August, which was another parallel that I wanted to draw here. So I'll take a look for that. But I believe let's check that out as we're speaking here. Maybe we'll get to it after the break. But I do believe that it was later in the summer. It was not like mid-July or anything. So as we're as we're looking at that, you know what, we'll get back to that thought in a second because I want I want to get to that. But I also want to kind of move down the line here with some of these others. Let me mention July 14. OK, so it was a little sooner than that. OK, but again, still later than we are right now. All right. So let's we're going to get to the other parallels here as we go forward. But we do want to mention a couple sponsors here. Our friends over at Water Cleanup of Florida, you can find them at WCUFL.com. We know that you may be dealing with leaks in your house or mold or anything like that. But why not join their preventative program so that this stuff doesn't happen and then you don't have to deal with insurance companies afterwards? So, again, not only can Water Cleanup clean it up after the fact, but they can clean it up before the fact also, or at least try to prevent the worst from occurring. So reach out to them at Water Cleanup of Florida. That's WCUFL.com. Michael Robert and his team, they will take care of everything for you. Again, they're state certified, fully licensed, insured by their business contractors, and so they can address any kind of damage that you have. They'll handle it from start to finish. 954-579-0356, 954-579-0356. Also want to mention our fantasy partner, our daily fantasy partner, PrizePix, use code 5FIVE. Hope you got in on the all star game and the home run derby in MLB. But there's much more you can do. Still, summer league is going on there, too. But also MMA, boxing, golf, tennis. It's all on there. You want to play Wimbledon? You can do that. So go to PrizePix.com or the Google Play store, the Apple app store. Use the code 5 to get your initial deposit match up to $100. Again, that's the code F.I.V.E. All right, let's move on to the next one. I mean, as we kind of follow this model here, LeBron and Bosch are different. Yeah, 2010, because it's cap space. It was a trade. Technically, those are their signings. Kind of, you know, they had the leverage to tell those teams, if you don't want to do business with us, we'll sign them outright. But if you want to do business with us, we'll give you picks, which in retrospect was not good business. But it was what they did at the time, thinking that they were just, I guess, locking in, you know, three stars even more long term. But that was only because they had the leverage to tell those teams in Toronto and Cleveland. All right. Don't want to play ball. We'll sign them outright. And so that's why I don't know that we can draw very many parallels because it just was a different ballgame there. Yeah, no doubt. And again, free agency players have more freedom of movement, obviously, than a player like Dame Lillard, who signed for four years and doesn't have a no trade clause. So there is a there is similarity in one sense, though, is that these are players who are kind of tired of their current situations like Dame has. You're talking about seven years for Bosch, seven years for LeBron Bosch. I don't believe it ever got past the first round. LeBron made it to a finals, but didn't really have a chance to compete in it. And so there is similarity to Dame in this sense of, again, these are players who gave their all to their current organizations who did not do enough to build around them. And so they had to go somewhere to go with other stars who needed complimentary stars to ultimately try to win a championship. And so that is the similarity there. Because if Cleveland had done a better job, LeBron gave Cleveland many of the same ultimatums behind the scenes that Dame has given Portland and they weren't heated. I don't know that Bosch did. But again, it comes down to this. If your team can't get it done in the modern NBA, if they can't put a competent team around you, that gives you a chance. If you're considered to be a top 10 or top 15 player in the league, it's a player's league. OK, and typically players end up going where they want to go, even if they're not free agents like those two guys. And that's where I think it applies. Funny how it ends up being Miami so often. And I think that and maybe we'll close here. So I'll only blurt this out quickly. It's just going to be interesting once we once we fully vet this list about how many times you've had really great players saying, I'd like to get to Miami or we're in the conversation to get to Miami or eventually got to Miami. And they get to Miami and they get to Miami. Yeah. Like, let's just remember the same folks have been running the whole thing as the players and the names change as the decades change. And that that's such a key point. And that's what I was getting at earlier, because it is the same people, for the most part, since 1995. I mean, not all of them, but a lot of them. And they know if they hold to the end, they'll get the player. There's there's evidence all the way across. Maybe they had to give up a little bit more in some cases. We'll get to drag it in a second. But they know that they're going to get the player like they have confidence in their hand and their strength in their own stubbornness and what it's going to pay off for. Whereas I don't see how Joe Cronin with his limited experience with a dysfunctional ownership group, OK, where he could be out of there in in nine months. Like, I don't see how he can have the same confidence that say that this is going to work out for him. That's a Pat Riley and Annie Ellersberg and others in the Aresons can about it. And again, that does not mean they're always going to get their guy, but it just means this is why they're playing the game this way, because they know they have a track record that they'll. Maybe it's November like so. OK, or maybe we're waiting till the trade deadline like drag. So we'll get to now, but eventually we're going to get our guy. And I think that's where we're at. All right. So let's get to drag it because this one's interesting also. So this is 2014, correct? So the 1415 season and Gorin, another situation disgruntled player was unhappy with Ryan McDonough. It's hard to think of Gorin that way, but he just wasn't happy there anymore. Miami, we can argue whether they overpaid or they didn't overpay at the deadline. But we had talked about them going out to drag it. I remember that that negotiation was like two weeks on Twitter and everywhere else. And, you know, were they ultimately going to get him and everything else? I'm a libertarian. I'm talking about all that. Well, they ultimately got him. They they got they got in the last like five minutes of the deadline. Right at the very last minute. Now, the unfortunate thing is it's the same day that Chris Bosch checked into the hospital or that whole era might have been different. But the heat stuck to their guns on draggage, and they ultimately made a deal that they wanted to make. And we can talk about was two first round picks. Was that right? That they went for? Danny Granger, Norris Cole, Sean Williams, Jordan Hamilton and two first round draft picks, one of which was for a short period of time considered the greatest asset in the sport, the unprotected pick out there, laughing stock nonsense anyway. And only two and only two. And we don't want to disparage our guy Norris, but he wasn't a big part of the plans by that point. Nothing else of significance traded and two first round picks, like you said, one of them was considered to be this holy grail pick, but two. OK, and I know that, again, the currency, there's been inflation in terms of picks that you've got to give the star players. But Gordon was coming off third team all NBA. I mean, he was still a very, very good player. I know he turned, I think, 32 at the time or 31 at the time. But he was still a very, very good player. And and they got him for a reasonable price. OK, but I walked another guy that could have walked. And exactly. He comes in and we had those no smiling faces with him. Agenda's was was a shot at LeBron, but they had confidence. Goran was going to resign, but they couldn't know 100% for sure. Goran was going to resign. He wasn't wasn't happy in Phoenix. He could have come to Miami and not been happy there either. He fell in love with the place. And so that and things ended up differently again. They held out. They did it right before the deadline, just like was so right before the season. So they are willing to stay like there. They'll stake you out. Like if they were, you know, police on a stake, they would stay all night. And, you know, Andy would send Pat out for the extra coffee. This is the way that they do this kind of thing. I just if there's one thing that's different about this, I guess I'll say that, I mean, this is for a future episode. What the hell do you do if it doesn't happen? And I think that also Portland knows that there's an inevitable and evident bit. I can't even say the word inevitability. Thank you to this whole thing happening. Like, Ethan, do you would you put it past the front office to like to mind bleep them so far? Like they haven't even called them. Like there's been all this talk of heat blazers. And like they don't even call yet because it's like they just want them to know, like, listen, you may think that we're desperate, but you're the one who's trying to figure out and scramble. I'm just like thoroughly. It's a total hypothetical. I think that I don't know that they would do anything that blatant. I would love to find out. But I do think it's a situation where they know that ultimately they're playing poker with a weaker hands player. And it's not about the hand he's been dealt. It's a weaker hands player. They can't possibly have the same confidence in his strategy that Pat and Andy and Mickey and Nick and, you know, their group is going to have about theirs. I just I can't believe that they do. And they've been right about everything so far. And we've been telegraphing it. They've been right about, you know, waiting on Dame because Dame was going to eventually make this move. And it just played out, you know, through a lot of the same people we thought it would. Chris Haynes is the world and, you know, and Dame social media and everything else. They saw this coming. That's why we saw this coming. And I don't know anything in this process other than what you were saying, which is that they're dealing with an unstable, which means by that means unpredictable front office that sends them to Philly out of nowhere. Like, that's the only thing. And I just I to me, that's it's not franchise suicide, but it certainly is is not the way that you treat a guy who's given everything to you for 11 years and was open and out front with you about it. OK, and that that's the big thing. All right. So the last one here before we go, I want to thank our sponsors. You break. We'll fix water clean with Florida and price fix. We're going to use that code five is Jimmy Butler. And this is another case where the heat stuck to their guns, right? Because the previous year they could have gotten Jimmy from Minnesota. Tibbs asked for BAM, among other things. We remember that famous phone call where both Sadano and I thought the deal was done. I went to dinner. I tweeted something's coming. I came out. The deal had fallen apart. Sadano reported that Pat hung up on Tibbs. Pat's denied that. But regardless, there was friction in terms of the way that that thing played out at the end. Right. And then a year later or not, even a year later. Well, I guess it was a year later when you're talking about Philadelphia. You know, again, they they got the guy. Now he's a free agent at that time. So it's a little different. But they got the guy and they got him for less than they would have. No cap space with no cap space. Then they likely would have given up to Minnesota. So this is this is the whole. And again, it's another situation. Disgruntled player, right? You know, you know, and everything else that we're seeing here. OK, and I know and obviously he didn't have the ties to Jimmy had ties to Chicago, but not to his other organizations that he went to afterwards when they stand strong. I just keep repeating this. It tends to work out for them. And whatever criticisms we may have about overpaying certain players and cap decisions that were not I want to say cap decisions, but personnel decisions that led to cap trouble or tax trouble, whatever we want to say about all that. This is where Pat Riley does his best work, getting the guy ultimately who wants to come to you. And again, I know people are going to throw the Durant. They were a long shot. Mitchell was never trading in here. This is a look. Bradley Beal. Nobody's going to care about Bradley Beal if they get Dame Lou. Now we know why it's so beautiful that now every heat fan you you want to know why I didn't go all in on Beale because they were waiting on Dame and they knew to wait on Dame. They know more than we do. Right. That's the thing. It doesn't mean they know everything. They can't know the future. And so they can't know what Joe Cronin is going to do. And I know that there are a ton of heat fans who and I hate to say this. I don't want to say a ton. I'll close here because it's not purely positive. There's a small segment of heat fans, I believe, that would prefer not to get Dame just so that they could say that the front office screwed up again. I do think that that segment exists, but I don't think anybody should be paying attention to anybody with that particular perspective. All right. Thanks to Greg. We are Greg sort of tipped off an episode. We are going to do some of us. We haven't figured out exactly which in our crew. But later today, we will do another episode about what happens if they don't get Dame. And again, we believe they are going to. So I want to be clear on that. But if they don't and they just bring what they have now back to camp, then what? I think that's an interesting thing to look at as we wait. All right. Thanks, Greg. Alex and Brady will be back on the next episode. Thank you for listening to the five on the floor on the five regional sports network.