Miami Heat @ New York Knicks - Friday, November 27th, 7:30 p.m.

[gom]

As for Andersen, already on an expiring contract, he is at the very least a reliable backup center, especially in games that are meaningful. If we are playing Cleveland in the conference finals and we don't have Hassan for whatever reason, would you rather have a front court of McRoberts & Bosh or Bosh & Andersen? I'll take the second. Birdman has the ability to overcome his physical pain and limitations. We even saw it in the closing part of the season last year. For the same reasons, I would keep Haslem for as long as he will play with us. He's glue.

[DWadeno3]

- Winslow is gonna be a star.
- Hassan needs to learn that when defending bigs on a post-up you have to get into a better stance and keep them out of the paint rather than letting them get to the rim and trying to block everything.
- Wade needs to stop rushing shots like a rookie, his lack of patience on those post-ups was unbelievable given that all he needed to do was bang Calderon or Afflalo or whoever else inside and have a layup party.
- Good to have you back G2.
- I love our stifling defense.
- Somehow I didn't miss Deng all that much.

[TroubleS0me]

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_u97pE24BWo[/youtube]
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNisjZ1R0b4[/youtube]

[BaDaBo]

Dragic has had plenty of freedom, and he's played plenty of minutes without Wade on the floor; having watched both rather closely, it is clear that Wade's the better playmaker and passer.

I find Wade to be a ball stopper, who can make some amazing passes when he chooses. Alas that does not happen enough, and players get cold and uninvolved when he goes Kobe on offense, and that's the exact opposite of a playmaker.That being said I'm only talking about this season. I'm sure prime-time Wadea was an amazing passer and playmaker.

tl;dr Lets agree to disagree

[xStanton27]

Getting rid of McBob would be a kind of lunacy imo. He helps massively with the 2nd unit's ballmovement, and if he could make even a few shots (which surely he can), he'll be deadly - his passing does open things up for other guys, that is clear. And seeing as Dragic hasn't been much of a playmaker (he's certainly a worse one than Wade), we need McBob's passing.

This. I don't get the hate. You're not going to find a Mcbob down in the D league. Trading him would absolutely inhibit our chances at competing.

Read attentively please. There is no hate. The question is the same as the Chalmers trade. Who can we trade that will get us below the cap to not pay taxes? Birdman by himself won't do it and has minor trade value (even though we have some money we can send at the trade deadline that will make him very cheap for his remaining salary). McRoberts does (his contract is favorable) and we can probably dump Udrih with him. A team like Utah might be happy getting him.

As for what we give up, I agree that he is a good point forward that makes some clever passes. I'm less convinced about the overall quality, in that a lot of his passes are sideways and just eat time off the clock (& we are already slow enough). Still his playmaking is a net positive and it's hard to find.

I disagree that we won't find comparative value in the D-League. There are good players there. In fact, Josh McRoberts spent a year or two there himself. So let's not argue about that.

Finally, we have to talk about his shooting if we talk about his playmaking. He might be in a slump but right now we have a player whose 2 point pct is 38% and 3 point pct is 16.7%. Not much data BECAUSE HE NEVER TAKES ANY SHOTS!!! but it is what it is. Also FT shooting is in the low 60s and he also never gets to the line.

Getting rid of Udrih & McRoberts puts us at 82.5M or 2.2M under the luxury tax threshold. That leaves enough space to pick up a veteran minimum or sign a d-leaguer (or two).

From my understanding, I thought selling Bird would put us under the threshold. Am I wrong?

[gom]

This. I don't get the hate. You're not going to find a Mcbob down in the D league. Trading him would absolutely inhibit our chances at competing.

Read attentively please. There is no hate. The question is the same as the Chalmers trade. Who can we trade that will get us below the cap to not pay taxes? Birdman by himself won't do it and has minor trade value (even though we have some money we can send at the trade deadline that will make him very cheap for his remaining salary). McRoberts does (his contract is favorable) and we can probably dump Udrih with him. A team like Utah might be happy getting him.

As for what we give up, I agree that he is a good point forward that makes some clever passes. I'm less convinced about the overall quality, in that a lot of his passes are sideways and just eat time off the clock (& we are already slow enough). Still his playmaking is a net positive and it's hard to find.

I disagree that we won't find comparative value in the D-League. There are good players there. In fact, Josh McRoberts spent a year or two there himself. So let's not argue about that.

Finally, we have to talk about his shooting if we talk about his playmaking. He might be in a slump but right now we have a player whose 2 point pct is 38% and 3 point pct is 16.7%. Not much data BECAUSE HE NEVER TAKES ANY SHOTS!!! but it is what it is. Also FT shooting is in the low 60s and he also never gets to the line.

Getting rid of Udrih & McRoberts puts us at 82.5M or 2.2M under the luxury tax threshold. That leaves enough space to pick up a veteran minimum or sign a d-leaguer (or two).

From my understanding, I thought selling Bird would put us under the threshold. Am I wrong?

I'm sorry. I wish it were true, but it's not:

http://www.basketballinsiders.com/miami-heat-team-salary/

Incidentally, if you scroll down, at the bottom it shows the capholds for 2016 (very useful for exploring the future cap issues).

We are at $90,269,203 right now and the tax threshold is $84,740,000. Birdman's salary is $5M, so we'll still be $529,000 short. Remember we still have $721000 in cash to use and that if we trade Birdman at the trade deadline (Feb 18), it leaves 3.5 months of salary or $1.45M. If we send $721000 with him the receiving team pays $730000 for him for the rest of the season - a pretty good deal.

If we sent McRoberts instead, though ($5,543,000) we are below the threshold by $14,000, and we can even dump Udrih (because a team will pay for McRoberts rather than have to be paid). He has a good contract, but we need cap space anyhow to sign Whiteside and Wade.

Check out Cartier Martin, a SF who shoots 40% 3s on 6 attempts per game:

http://dleague.nba.com/player/cartier-martin/

I like Perry Jones III too. He played off the bench for OKC and wasn't very good. Both forwards on the Energy are pretty good in the D-League though. They also have one of the Harrison twins as guard. None of them are under contract in the NBA.

[DayofMourning]

PJ3 needs a dose of IQ IV qid.