Why did the Heat trade away…

[HeatFanLifer]

You've got to have the cap space and the assets to get those guys. Riley was shrewd. He traded Rice, Reeves, and Matt Geiger for LeRon Ellis and Alonzo Mourning then traded Bimbo Coles and Kevin Willis for Tim Hardaway and Chris Gatling at the trade deadline, as well as every other contract that wasn't expiring. He finished the job they started and made room for guys like PJ Brown and Juwan Howard. Then we lost Howard and ended up trading Sasha and Hurt Thomas for Mashburn, found Voshon Lenard off of the scrap heap, and the rest is history...

Coles, Willis, and Geiger were all decent. Billy Owens was OK. Everything else...yeesh...

But man did that man know how to tear it down and rebuild, quickly. Imagine if the Knicks had been smarter and handed control to Riley? Talk about a fork in the road...

I read an article while pulling up those articles about Seikaly that Houston once offered Olajuwon for Harold Minor, Grant Long, and Rony Seikaly. Allegedly the Heat turned them down. Baby Jordan was too valuable.

[BBallFreak]

Coles, Willis, and Geiger were all decent. Billy Owens was OK. Everything else...yeesh...

But man did that man know how to tear it down and rebuild, quickly. Imagine if the Knicks had been smarter and handed control to Riley? Talk about a fork in the road...

I read an article while pulling up those articles about Seikaly that Houston once offered Olajuwon for Harold Minor, Grant Long, and Rony Seikaly. Allegedly the Heat turned them down. Baby Jordan was too valuable.

Yup, I remember hearing that we very nearly acquired him. Would have instantly changed the franchise, forever...

[SA37]

You've got to have the cap space and the assets to get those guys. Riley was shrewd. He traded Rice, Reeves, and Matt Geiger for LeRon Ellis and Alonzo Mourning then traded Bimbo Coles and Kevin Willis for Tim Hardaway and Chris Gatling at the trade deadline, as well as every other contract that wasn't expiring. He finished the job they started and made room for guys like PJ Brown and Juwan Howard. Then we lost Howard and ended up trading Sasha and Hurt Thomas for Mashburn, found Voshon Lenard off of the scrap heap, and the rest is history...

Coles, Willis, and Geiger were all decent. Billy Owens was OK. Everything else...yeesh...

But man did that man know how to tear it down and rebuild, quickly. Imagine if the Knicks had been smarter and handed control to Riley? Talk about a fork in the road...

Billy Owens was billed as being the next point-forward star who could do it all, but was absolute garbage; his NBA career ended up being something along the lines of Michael Carter Williams. Kevin Willis was going to give Miami an inside presence it lacked.

Riley took advantage of several situations: the Mourning-Larry Johnson fall out; Riley bet on Tim Hardaway, who had not been the same player since his ACL injury (which at the time was considered career-threatening, if not career-ending); then, Riley was able to get Mashburn after the Mavericks had issues with their trio of Kidd, Jackson, and Mashburn.

IIRC, Riley said getting Mourning was the franchise-altering move that made everything else possible.

[BBallFreak]

Coles, Willis, and Geiger were all decent. Billy Owens was OK. Everything else...yeesh...

But man did that man know how to tear it down and rebuild, quickly. Imagine if the Knicks had been smarter and handed control to Riley? Talk about a fork in the road...

Billy Owens was billed as being the next point-forward star who could do it all, but was absolute garbage; his NBA career ended up being something along the lines of Michael Carter Williams. Kevin Willis was going to give Miami an inside presence it lacked.

Riley took advantage of several situations: the Mourning-Larry Johnson fall out; Riley bet on Tim Hardaway, who had not been the same player since his ACL injury (which at the time was considered career-threatening, if not career-ending); then, Riley was able to get Mashburn after the Mavericks had issues with their trio of Kidd, Jackson, and Mashburn.

IIRC, Riley said getting Mourning was the franchise-altering move that made everything else possible.

That's pretty much how I remember it, too. You and I went back and forth for years on Riley and whether he was good for the franchise or not good enough (I never thought he felt he was bad for the team). I think Riley's biggest mistake (and I'm not talking about specific transactions) was sticking with that core for too long. He held onto Mashburn and Brown for too long before finally deciding to upgrade those pieces, and when he did, he was too late. Zo got sick and the rest is history.

But yeah, Riley has never been afraid of a low-risk high-reward gamble...

[SA37]

Coles, Willis, and Geiger were all decent. Billy Owens was OK. Everything else...yeesh...

But man did that man know how to tear it down and rebuild, quickly. Imagine if the Knicks had been smarter and handed control to Riley? Talk about a fork in the road...

I read an article while pulling up those articles about Seikaly that Houston once offered Olajuwon for Harold Minor, Grant Long, and Rony Seikaly. Allegedly the Heat turned them down. Baby Jordan was too valuable.

Yup, I remember hearing that we very nearly acquired him. Would have instantly changed the franchise, forever...

I'd never heard that story...ouch. It's easy to think about how Miami would have benefitted from that trade, but imagine what that would have done to Houston's franchise had they made that deal...

[BBallFreak]

I read an article while pulling up those articles about Seikaly that Houston once offered Olajuwon for Harold Minor, Grant Long, and Rony Seikaly. Allegedly the Heat turned them down. Baby Jordan was too valuable.

Yup, I remember hearing that we very nearly acquired him. Would have instantly changed the franchise, forever...

I'd never heard that story...ouch. It's easy to think about how Miami would have benefitted from that trade, but imagine what that would have done to Houston's franchise had they made that deal...

True.

This was before Riley, obviously, because he'd have driven Miner to the airport and, for good measure, kicked him onto the plane to make a deal like that happen...

[SA37]

Coles, Willis, and Geiger were all decent. Billy Owens was OK. Everything else...yeesh...

But man did that man know how to tear it down and rebuild, quickly. Imagine if the Knicks had been smarter and handed control to Riley? Talk about a fork in the road...

Billy Owens was billed as being the next point-forward star who could do it all, but was absolute garbage; his NBA career ended up being something along the lines of Michael Carter Williams. Kevin Willis was going to give Miami an inside presence it lacked.

Riley took advantage of several situations: the Mourning-Larry Johnson fall out; Riley bet on Tim Hardaway, who had not been the same player since his ACL injury (which at the time was considered career-threatening, if not career-ending); then, Riley was able to get Mashburn after the Mavericks had issues with their trio of Kidd, Jackson, and Mashburn.

IIRC, Riley said getting Mourning was the franchise-altering move that made everything else possible.

That's pretty much how I remember it, too. You and I went back and forth for years on Riley and whether he was good for the franchise or not good enough (I never thought he felt he was bad for the team). I think Riley's biggest mistake (and I'm not talking about specific transactions) was sticking with that core for too long. He held onto Mashburn and Brown for too long before finally deciding to upgrade those pieces, and when he did, he was too late. Zo got sick and the rest is history.

But yeah, Riley has never been afraid of a low-risk high-reward gamble...

My biggest issue was how he handled the post-Eddie Jones/Brian Grant acquisitions, which is where we had our biggest disagreements; I wanted Riley to trade them for expirings at pretty much any cost and build through the Draft and then add via cap space. I felt that delaying that rebuild was just being stubborn (this was right after Mourning got sick and it turned out Eddie Jones was anything but a star). At that point, I felt like Riley wasn't doing the franchise any favors and probably needed to be let go.

I didn't mind the Hardaway-ZO-Mashburn core at all. My issue was Mashburn was underutilized on offense; everyone wanted Mashburn to score like he did in Dallas, but he was the 3rd option in Miami. Riley did try to acquire Payton to replace Hardaway, but Payton re-signed with the Sonics and Miami re-signed Hardaway.

Somehow, some way, Riley has been able to come back from the impossible and build winning teams in every way imaginable. It's been a heck of a ride, but the man has given this franchise an incredible ~27 years and become a legend.

[BBallFreak]

Billy Owens was billed as being the next point-forward star who could do it all, but was absolute garbage; his NBA career ended up being something along the lines of Michael Carter Williams. Kevin Willis was going to give Miami an inside presence it lacked.

Riley took advantage of several situations: the Mourning-Larry Johnson fall out; Riley bet on Tim Hardaway, who had not been the same player since his ACL injury (which at the time was considered career-threatening, if not career-ending); then, Riley was able to get Mashburn after the Mavericks had issues with their trio of Kidd, Jackson, and Mashburn.

IIRC, Riley said getting Mourning was the franchise-altering move that made everything else possible.

That's pretty much how I remember it, too. You and I went back and forth for years on Riley and whether he was good for the franchise or not good enough (I never thought he felt he was bad for the team). I think Riley's biggest mistake (and I'm not talking about specific transactions) was sticking with that core for too long. He held onto Mashburn and Brown for too long before finally deciding to upgrade those pieces, and when he did, he was too late. Zo got sick and the rest is history.

But yeah, Riley has never been afraid of a low-risk high-reward gamble...

My biggest issue was how he handled the post-Eddie Jones/Brian Grant acquisitions, which is where we had our biggest disagreements; I wanted Riley to trade them for expirings at pretty much any cost and build through the Draft and then add via cap space. I felt that delaying that rebuild was just being stubborn (this was right after Mourning got sick and it turned out Eddie Jones was anything but a star). At that point, I felt like Riley wasn't doing the franchise any favors and probably needed to be let go.

I didn't mind the Hardaway-ZO-Mashburn core at all. My issue was Mashburn was underutilized on offense; everyone wanted Mashburn to score like he did in Dallas, but he was the 3rd option in Miami. Riley did try to acquire Payton to replace Hardaway, but Payton re-signed with the Sonics and Miami re-signed Hardaway.

Somehow, some way, Riley has been able to come back from the impossible and build winning teams in every way imaginable. It's been a heck of a ride, but the man has given this franchise an incredible ~27 years and become a legend.

He was a legend before us, too. Yeah, I would have loved to see him offload Grant and Jones but I wasn't ready to see us rebuild, and neither was he it seems. That's just not in his DNA. What he has managed to do over the course of the aforementioned 27 years is to change us from a team that valued Harold Miner more than Hakeem Olajuwon, to one of the premier franchises in the league. It's been nothing short of miraculous. Us OG's are lucky as can be to see what he's done for this franchise...

[HEATVols865]

That's pretty much how I remember it, too. You and I went back and forth for years on Riley and whether he was good for the franchise or not good enough (I never thought he felt he was bad for the team). I think Riley's biggest mistake (and I'm not talking about specific transactions) was sticking with that core for too long. He held onto Mashburn and Brown for too long before finally deciding to upgrade those pieces, and when he did, he was too late. Zo got sick and the rest is history.

But yeah, Riley has never been afraid of a low-risk high-reward gamble...

My biggest issue was how he handled the post-Eddie Jones/Brian Grant acquisitions, which is where we had our biggest disagreements; I wanted Riley to trade them for expirings at pretty much any cost and build through the Draft and then add via cap space. I felt that delaying that rebuild was just being stubborn (this was right after Mourning got sick and it turned out Eddie Jones was anything but a star). At that point, I felt like Riley wasn't doing the franchise any favors and probably needed to be let go.

I didn't mind the Hardaway-ZO-Mashburn core at all. My issue was Mashburn was underutilized on offense; everyone wanted Mashburn to score like he did in Dallas, but he was the 3rd option in Miami. Riley did try to acquire Payton to replace Hardaway, but Payton re-signed with the Sonics and Miami re-signed Hardaway.

Somehow, some way, Riley has been able to come back from the impossible and build winning teams in every way imaginable. It's been a heck of a ride, but the man has given this franchise an incredible ~27 years and become a legend.

He was a legend before us, too. Yeah, I would have loved to see him offload Grant and Jones but I wasn't ready to see us rebuild, and neither was he it seems. That's just not in his DNA. What he has managed to do over the course of the aforementioned 27 years is to change us from a team that valued Harold Miner more than Hakeem Olajuwon, to one of the premier franchises in the league. It's been nothing short of miraculous. Us OG's are lucky as can be to see what he's done for this franchise...

A hello to all Knicks fans who would troll us when they beat us. We’ve won 3 titles and been to 6 NBA Finals. The Knicks? 2 NBA Finals. IRRELEVANT


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[HeatFanLifer]

My biggest issue was how he handled the post-Eddie Jones/Brian Grant acquisitions, which is where we had our biggest disagreements; I wanted Riley to trade them for expirings at pretty much any cost and build through the Draft and then add via cap space. I felt that delaying that rebuild was just being stubborn (this was right after Mourning got sick and it turned out Eddie Jones was anything but a star). At that point, I felt like Riley wasn't doing the franchise any favors and probably needed to be let go.

I am not sure many teams would have wanted that BG or Eddie Jones contract. Plus, Zo’s contract was on the books for a couple of years and anthony carter was also a cap hit. I think Pat Riley did it right.

2000-2001 season: Zo goes down. Heat go 50-32.
2001-2002 season: Heat have a losing season, draft Caron Butler
2002-2003: Heat go full tank, draft Dwayne Wade
2003-2004: Zo’s contract expires. Anthony Carter’s agent “forgets” to opt into a one year option. Heat sign Lamar Odom.
2004-2005: Heat trade BG, Odom, and CB for Shaq
2005-2006: Heat trade Eddie Jones and whoever else for Posey, J Will, and sign Antoine Walker. Championship.

Pretty hell of a job turning things around.

[AirP.]

Billy Owens, the guy who broke up Run TMC. Still can't believe Golden State did that trade, even odder that Miami traded for him, but who knows, he was the #3 pick overall 3 years before that. Willis was scoring well for Atlanta but he was in his early 30s when Miami traded for him.

[HEATVols865]

Billy Owens, the guy who broke up Run TMC. Still can't believe Golden State did that trade, even odder that Miami traded for him, but who knows, he was the #3 pick overall 3 years before that. Willis was scoring well for Atlanta but he was in his early 30s when Miami traded for him.

NBA Jam vibes seeing this picture. Major 90s graphics


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[BBallFreak]

Billy Owens was a very interesting player. 6'8" versatile forward who could handle, rebound, and score but never seen to get himself together enough to be more than average. Just didn't have the head for the league.

[gom]

Great thread.

Like HEATVols865, we were in Brazil when the Heat became an NBA team and moved to S. Florida just after Andrew. I was still a Lakers fan at the time, and you may recall, the post-Magic team led by Worthy & Divac (etc) wasn't great. Riley moving to Miami triggered my change of allegiance, but it took time. And while I disagree with a number of his choices, he gets it right much more often than not.

[Grumpy Heat Fan]

Rony Seikaly! Blast from the past.


I met Rony Seikaly when I was like 8 years old, at one of the department stores in International Mall. This was early 1990s. I think the name of the store was BURDINES? JC Penny? It was a clothing dept store that probably doesn't exist anymore.

I was there cause my family dragged me to the mall to go shopping, and I was wandering around and some lady got on the intercom and said Rony Seikaly was in the store and signing autographs for the next 5 minutes. No I didn't get an autograph, he left quickly after.

This was back before Dolphin Mall was ever built. In Miami, back then the biggest malls was International Mall, followed by Mall of the Americas. Mall of the Americas is a shithole now. It's a dump now, and they sold off the movie theater and arcade and ice cream shop section to COSTCO. Although Mall of Americas had Malibu Grand Prix... it was a real stone castle near the back of the mall outside... that housed a giant arcade and games like a Dave & Busters of today, but they also had a big mini-golf course, and a big go-kart racing track. It was like Dave & Busters combined with K1 kart Racing in one location. That place was **** awesome, don't know why they went out of business and tore the castle down.


Just felt like reminiscing. Miami was a better city back then. A LOT less traffic, man. You could go on the highways on the weekends and it was all open roads for a few cars.

[SA37]

My biggest issue was how he handled the post-Eddie Jones/Brian Grant acquisitions, which is where we had our biggest disagreements; I wanted Riley to trade them for expirings at pretty much any cost and build through the Draft and then add via cap space. I felt that delaying that rebuild was just being stubborn (this was right after Mourning got sick and it turned out Eddie Jones was anything but a star). At that point, I felt like Riley wasn't doing the franchise any favors and probably needed to be let go.

I am not sure many teams would have wanted that BG or Eddie Jones contract. Plus, Zo’s contract was on the books for a couple of years and anthony carter was also a cap hit. I think Pat Riley did it right.

2000-2001 season: Zo goes down. Heat go 50-32.
2001-2002 season: Heat have a losing season, draft Caron Butler
2002-2003: Heat go full tank, draft Dwayne Wade
2003-2004: Zo’s contract expires. Anthony Carter’s agent “forgets” to opt into a one year option. Heat sign Lamar Odom.
2004-2005: Heat trade BG, Odom, and CB for Shaq
2005-2006: Heat trade Eddie Jones and whoever else for Posey, J Will, and sign Antoine Walker. Championship.

Pretty hell of a job turning things around.

You can't argue with the results. Hindsight, though, is 20/20.

Miami was capped out and becoming a treadmill team after the 50-win season. Anthony Carter's agent "forgetting" paved the way for Odom (Miami actually wanted Elton Brand and actually signed Brand to the max, which was matched by the Clippers) and Riley gambled on the fall out from the Shaq-Bryant feud. All of this was pretty fortuitous, but you have to get lucky from time to time -- especially when Miami had been so unlucky with Mourning (had Mourning stayed healthy, the Brian Grant & Eddie Jones signings might have worked out much better. We'll never know.)

What I argued for at the time was dumping Jones and Grant for expirings to create as much space as possible and be in the hunt for the top pick. Both Grant and Jones were overpaid, but still very good players, especially Jones. The late 90s/early 2000s saw a lot of really bad players get paid (Raef LaFrentz, Erick Dampier, Jerome James, Austin Croshere, Adonal Foyle...etc) and there were definitely opportunities to trade overpaid good players for obscene contracts for players who would have otherwise been out of the league.

The other issue Miami had is that it didn't have any young players to speak of. Miami just didn't have any young talent to develop at that point.

[HEATVols865]

Great thread.

Like HEATVols865, we were in Brazil when the Heat became an NBA team and moved to S. Florida just after Andrew. I was still a Lakers fan at the time, and you may recall, the post-Magic team led by Worthy & Divac (etc) wasn't great. Riley moving to Miami triggered my change of allegiance, but it took time. And while I disagree with a number of his choices, he gets it right much more often than not.

Funny, my favorite uncle moved to Miami in 1990. He went back to Brazil one year for a couple of weeks and brought a Heat hat.
So I started playing NBA Live 94 and played with the Heat. In December 94 I visited the US for the first time and fell in love with the country and with Miami.
My aunt used to work at Banker’s Trust right in downtown Miami. Her building was the square looking one that had a ginormous antenna on top. I believe it’s no longer there. But on NBA Live when you selected your team, it would have screenshots of the city the team played at and one of Miami’s screenshot was Miami at night and that building was right on the front.
I came back in 95 with my grandparents for my aunt and uncle MBA graduation from FIU, and the ceremony was at Miami Arena which I was just fascinated that I was in an NBA arena.
That made me like the Heat even more and then the NBA in Brazil started showing more games, not just the Friday night games on Bandeirantes.
So that’s when the Heat and Knicks stuff started and I bought in and suffered through all that crap.
Fast forward to 2001 and I moved to the US to go to the University of Tennessee. I’m a huge ass Vol fan but I cannot stand freaking Allan Houston who has his jersey retired at UT. All because he played for the damn Knicks.


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[gom]

Flash backed to watching Jordan beating the Pistons on Bandeirantes. Yep, that's how we watched the NBA from Rio too, and, yeah, those Heat/Knicks games defined my sports pov in the 90s and articulate my pride as a Heat fan. Totally respect the Knicks teams of the rivalry, Ewing especially. I am happy the Knicks have a decent team now, but winning isn't enough. I want to beat them into the ground, crush their souls... The Knicks are a great rival, and New York crowds are loud af. Love the MSG atmosphere too.

[Heat3]

Billy Owens was a proto-Lebron James. Forward body that can play like a guard. Well…that was the idea anyway.

I had forgotten about the Hakeem rumors. I believe here were Pippen/Rice rumors at one point too.

[Grumpy Heat Fan]

Great thread.

Like HEATVols865, we were in Brazil when the Heat became an NBA team and moved to S. Florida just after Andrew. I was still a Lakers fan at the time, and you may recall, the post-Magic team led by Worthy & Divac (etc) wasn't great. Riley moving to Miami triggered my change of allegiance, but it took time. And while I disagree with a number of his choices, he gets it right much more often than not.

Ah man, Andrew. My family moved to Miami from New Jersey, in like 1989. I remember Andrew as a little boy. To this day, I've been through every single Hurricane in Miami since Andrew, and Andrew is the only one who scared the **** outta me. It was scary. Like, back then, I remember Andrew made our roof shake. It was literally shaking side to side about an inch either way. I can picture it in my head right now, damn year 30 years later. I think I stood in the middle of a room, just looking up at the corner of a wall, to see the roof shaking. It was also shaking the **** out of our patio glass doors. We had to put a couch up touching the glass doors, and put some heavy things on the couch, so the glass wouldn't shake itself to destruction. We got lucky.

After Andrew, the entire city of Miami was a trash dump. It was like at least a week before we could drive our cars, due to so much debris and tree branches and stuff on the road. I think schools didn't even open until a month later, something like that. I don't remember what the hell I did to pass the time back then, with no electricity, and you can't really go anywhere. But we didn't have internet back during Andrew, so kids like me were used to playing outside everyday, catching frogs and lizards and giving them names and ****, and playing sports.

Imagine kids of today who are hooked on the internet and ****, what would they do with no electricity for a couple of weeks? LOL they'd go crazy


A lot of people took advantage of the chaos after Andrew too. I remember the National Guard came in to Miami to help us, due to the massive destruction to city utilities and all that. There was a national guardsman who raped a woman and killed her boyfriend, he pretended he was helping them. That was sad.