Q: Saw your piece about Terry Rozier being waived after the deadline. I hope the Heat find some prospects to develop and don\u2019t get caught up with Chris Paul, Lonzo Ball or Mike Conley Jr. One more veteran is not going to make a difference with this team. \u2013 Arnie.<\/p>\n
A: Could not agree more. If the Heat do not make any moves at the deadline, then they will have two open roster spots<\/a>. It should be all about development from that point going forward (as if it matters what play-in seed they get, considering they made the playoffs from No. 10 last year). Another option would be converting a pair of their two-way players to team-favorable standard contracts, perhaps Myron Gardner and Jahmir Young, and then backfilling their two-way spots, with two-way players allowed to be signed until March 4. Most likely, though, such moves will wait until March 1, which is the deadline for players to be waived by one team to be playoff-eligible for another team.<\/p>\n Q: So let\u2019s look at the Heat division, shall we? The Wizards added Anthony Davis. The Hornets got Coby White. The Hawks are going to get New Orleans\u2019 lottery pick. And Orlando got Desmond Bane. And we got a championship celebration. What is wrong with this picture? \u2013 Dennis.<\/p>\n A: First of all, you have to widen your perspective, since divisions hardly matter in today\u2019s NBA, and it is possible that all five teams in a division can miss the playoffs. So it\u2019s what happens in the East, as a whole, that matters most. For the Heat, that makes it more about the Cavaliers adding James Harden or the Celtics adding Nikola Vucevic . . . if there is hope of winning a playoff series this season (and not sure there is). But, again, when weighing moves in the Southeast, let\u2019s not discount the Heat acquiring Norman Powell<\/a>, an All-Star last summer, and wait to see what happens with him next. It always is tough doing these mailbags on the day of the deadline, since in a moment, everything could change.<\/p>\n Q: Ira, Jimmy Butler wasn\u2019t Giannis when we got him but he got us to two Finals. That\u2019s the kind of player we should look at if Giannis isn\u2019t coming. \u2013 Ed.<\/p>\n A: Agree, just like the Knicks made their move for Jalen Brunson, who vaulted them up the standings. It\u2019s not always about getting an all-time great, but rather a star who\u00a0 singularly can elevate. Those players aren\u2019t as sexy, but they\u2019re out there.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Q: Saw your piece about Terry Rozier being waived after the deadline. I hope the Heat find some…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":144618,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[17325,114,123,125,2490,16151,124,2295,110],"class_list":{"0":"post-144617","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-miami","8":"tag-ask-ira","9":"tag-latest-headlines","10":"tag-miami","11":"tag-miami-headlines","12":"tag-miami-heat","13":"tag-miami-heat-blog","14":"tag-miami-news","15":"tag-nba","16":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144617","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=144617"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144617\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/144618"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=144617"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=144617"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=144617"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}