Barry Jackson\u00a0and\u00a0Anthony Chiang<\/a> of the Miami Herald, Dallas Mavericks guard Klay Thompson “has emerged as a player of strong interest to the Miami Heat, multiple sources said in recent days. The Heat has interest in adding Thompson whether LeBron James joins the Heat or not, a source said.”<\/p>\nThey additionally reported that the team “would like to add another scoring wing player with size to supplement Andrew Wiggins, Tim Hardaway Jr., second-round pick Ryan Conwell and third-year player Pelle Larsson.”<\/p>\n
Thompson, 36, isn’t the elite three-and-D wing he was during his prime, though in a more limited role he can still be effective. Last season, he averaged 11.7 points per game and shot 38.3 percent from three in 21.7 minutes per game (69 total contests). <\/p>\n
Unless Thompson is willing to take a buyout, however, playing for the Heat likely won’t happen. With Thompson set to make $17.4 million next season and the Heat already low on reliable depth, matching salaries in a trade wouldn’t make much sense from Miami’s perspective.<\/p>\n
Granted, Thompson could recoup some of the money lost in a buyout once he signs in Miami, which has $7 million it could offer in a midlevel exception. It’s also possible that the midlevel exception might not be available if LeBron James decides to sign in Miami, though he could choose to sign on a veteran minimum. <\/p>\n
So there are a lot of moving parts in play. It’s pretty clear that the Heat need more reliable bodies on the wing and definitely need high-level shooting. The Giannis trade may have been one of the biggest splashes of the offseason, but Miami’s roster around him still feels like a work in progress.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Miami Heat need to surround Giannis Antetokounmpo and Bam Adebayo with more shooting. They may have eyes…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":539970,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[85,46,105],"class_list":["post-539969","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/539969","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=539969"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/539969\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/539970"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=539969"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=539969"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=539969"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}