With the trade last week of Shaquille O'Neal to the Phoenix Suns for Marcus Banks and Shawn Marion, Pat Riley has began to reload the Miami Heat in a short period of time.
Here is a look at the contracts:
Marcus Banks
2007-08 $3,888,000
2008-09 $4,176,000
2009-10 $4,464,000
2010-11 $4,752,000
Shawn Marion
2007-08 $16,440,000
2008-09 $17,180,000
Shaquille O'Neal
2007-08 $20,000,000
2008-09 $20,000,000
2009-10 $20,000,000
In 2007-08, Miami takes on $328,000 of additional salary and in 2008-09, they take on $356,000 of additional salary. However, in 2009-10, when Marion's current contract expires, the Heat will only be tied to two more minimal years of Banks contract. At the same time, the Suns will still be paying O'Neal $20,000,000 at the age of 38.
After this season, the Heat will be locked into Dwyane Wade, Mark Blount, Udonis Haslem, Daequan Cook, and then Marion and Banks' contracts. Additionally, they have a team option on Alexander Johnson ($687,456) and qualifying orders to Smush Parker ($2,400,000) and Dorrell Wright ($2,425,086). Likely, Parker will be freed to go elsewhere and they will likely offer Wright the qualifying offer.
So with a core of Marion, Wade, Haslem, Banks, and Wright, the Heat are in position to contend in the East next season with a few other moves.
The Heat have a handful of expiring contracts now that they can leverage into more talent. If I were Pat Riley, I would look to add a scoring post presence for the new-look Heat. Below is a three-team trade proposal that I think would benefit each team:
Knicks get:
Jason Smith $1,233,840, 2 Years Remaining
Kevin Ollie $3,441,900, 1 Year Remaining
Herbert Hill, $427,163, 1 Year Remaining
Samuel Dalembert, $10,251,435, 4 Years Remaining
Smush Parker $2,250,000, 1 Year Remaining
2009 Heat First Round Pick
76ers get:
Ricky Davis, $6,819,000, 1 Year Remaining
Randolph Morris, $810,000, 1 Year Remaining
Jerome James, $5,800,000, 2 Years Remaining
Mardy Collins, $967,320, 2 Years Remaining
Heat get:
Louis Amundson, $687,456, 1 Year Remaining
Eddy Curry, $8,947,543, 3 Years Remaining
In this trade, the Knicks would exchange Eddy Curry, an offensive-minded center, for Samuel Dalembert, a defensive-minded center. They would also free themselves of James' contract, who has been a huge disappointment in New York. The Knicks would also acquire 2007 first round pick, Jason Smith along with a 2009 Miami Heat first round pick. Although the pick should not be a lottery pick once the Heat rebuild their team in this offseason, it is still an asset. Dalembert starting next to Zach Randolph with David Lee being the third post player would be a nice fit. Dalembert and Randolph are opposite type players and would be able to work well together.
For the 76ers, the key to this deal would be exchanging Dalembert's contract for James' contract. In this exchange, Philadelphia is saving more than thirty million dollars. Additionally, the team would be receiving nearly eight million dollars in expiring contracts this season. This would give Philadelphia even more cap flexibility in their attempt to rebuild. Perhaps, they would have the ability to sign both Gilbert Arenas and Elton Brand this summer.
The Heat would be acquiring the best player in this trade. Curry would be able to provide exactly what the Heat would be lacking: offensive post presence. He would fit nicely next to two defensive-minded forwards in Udonis Haslem and Shawn Marion. In this trade, the Heat would be giving up expiring contracts and a first round pick the year after next. Ideally, the Heat will be very competitive by that time and that pick would not have much value.
After this trade, the Heat would be starting with Banks, Wade, Marion, Haslem, and Curry as its starters. Daequan Cook, Dorrell Wright, and Mark Blount would be keys off the bench for the Heat.
The key part of this is that the Heat are currently the worse team in the NBA, with a record of 9-39. Although their standing would likely improve, the Heat will still have one of the top picks in the upcoming draft. They would be in position to add either a point guard to compete with Banks and play next to Wade, or a big man to fit in with Haslem and Curry. This draft is loaded and both of these spots. The Heat would certainly consider Michael Beasley, DeAndre Jordan, Brooke Lopez, Hasheem Thabeet, Kevin Love, or Darrell Arthur. If they choose to go with a point guard, Derrick Rose, O.J. Mayo, Jerryd Bayless, and Darren Collison would all likely be possibilities.
Although the Heat have the worse record in the league right now, they have the ability to reload in a hurry. By this time next season, the Heat could be on the top of the Eastern Conference.
Showing posts with label Pat Riley. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Pat Riley. Show all posts
Saturday, February 9, 2008
Sunday, September 23, 2007
Garrick Barr & Synergy Sports Technology
"An inside game, a high-tech way: Barr's product provides a clear picture behind the stats"
by Bob Young
The Arizona Republic
Apr. 13, 2006 12:00 AM
Maybe Garrick Barr was born to revolutionize the way professional basketball teams use technology.
He might change the way you use it, too, if you happen to be a basketball fan.
What Barr, a former Suns video coordinator, has done is build Synergy Sports Technology, a Web-based service for NBA teams that is expanding into colleges, international basketball and soon might become part of an interactive fan feature at NBA.com.
Essentially, his company puts statistical data and video together, and makes it available to teams almost immediately and for many different uses, from player evaluation to scouting to coaching.
"He played college basketball, coached in college, son of an engineer. It's the perfect marriage of the technology and the person," said David Griffin, vice president and assistant general manager of the Suns.
"He's the most qualified person on the planet for what he has done."
Barr launched the company three years ago. This is the first NBA season in which the company has provided full service to teams, but Barr said the company will be cash-flow positive by next year.
Right now, five NBA teams are using the service, paying between $50,000 and $75,000 for the season, and several others are considering it.
It's less clear when his investors will begin seeing a return because the company already is looking into growing the core business by expanding to other sports while exploring other ways to leverage the technology.
Among Barr's backers is the NBA's biggest techie, Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban, who made his fortune by co-founding Broadcast.com.
How it works
Let's say that Cuban's Mavericks have just lost to the Suns and gave up too many fastbreak points in the loss.
Mavericks coach Avery Johnson wants to know what went wrong. About 20 minutes after the end of the game, his video scouts can use Barr's service to provide video "edits" - clips - of every Phoenix fastbreak in the game.
He also can get every Dallas transitional situation for the entire season to see how that night's game compared to others.
Or, he could ask for:
• All the plays in which Steve Nash came off to his left in the Suns' bread-and-butter pick-and-roll game - in that game or all season.
• The plays in which Nash went all the way to the basket, pulled up for jump shot or passed.
• A breakdown to determine how successful Nash is when he goes left, whether he's more likely to shoot or pass in that situation and whether he's more likely to go to the rim or pull up - all with links to video clips to see why it all happens.
And it can all be done online with a couple of mouse clicks, or downloaded and put on a DVD - just in case the Mavericks have a plane to catch and Johnson wants to look at it all of this in the air.
"The system allows us to look at every play, in every way, and to tie it back to stats," Cuban said via e-mail. "So, we can watch how we played every pick and roll, track our success rate and also see how other teams are doing it.
"It's an invaluable resource that makes us smarter when combined with a lot of advanced statistical analysis we do."
Basketball background
It helps that Barr knows the game as well as the technology.
A former high school teammate of Paul Westphal's at Aviation High in Redondo Beach, Calif., Barr played at UC Irvine and later worked as an assistant coach under Westphal at Grand Canyon College.
Barr came with Westphal to the Suns, and in 11 years as the team's video coach he came up with a lot of ideas about how to combine statistical information with video to more efficiently analyze players and teams.
Usually, he gave those ideas to the various vendors, who called on the Suns with their latest video editing equipment.
"Everybody that came in wanted to hire him," Griffin remembers.
Barr noticed as he went around the league with the Suns that much of that equipment ended up gathering dust.
So in 1998 he founded Quantified Scouting Service, which logged virtually every possession of NBA games to provide offensive tendencies reports.
It was a first step, and in 2003, Barr decided it was time to take it further, quit giving away his ideas and launch a company that could combine the statistical analysis with video and make it available in real time.
He left the Suns.
Tech support
With the advantage of a coaching background, he knew what his clients would want, and with an intimate knowledge of his competition, he knew what they were - or were not - getting.
What he didn't know was whether technology would support it or what it might cost.
A family member hooked him up with Nils Lahr, a former Microsoft engineer and chief architect of iBeam Broadcast Corp., which once was one of Silicon Valley's first big online content providers.
To say Lahr is an expert on streaming video is an understatement. In the tech world, he is Michael Jordan, Shaquille O'Neal, a superstar.
"Garrick knew what he wanted to do. He could imagine the workflow. He just didn't know if the technology would get him from point A to point B," Lahr said.
Lahr got him there.
"When I was at Microsoft six years ago, there is nothing we're doing now that we couldn't have done then," he said. "But the startup cost at that time would have been millions and millions. We had to invent a few things that didn't exist for this, but the technology at that time would have worked. However, the business model would have killed it.
"Now, every two or three months you read a press release about somebody in sports trying to do something else on the Internet. The industry has grown by $200million just from last year. It's growing exponentially.
"With streaming video and stats together on the Internet, we can include fans in ways that have never been possible. And people are willing to experiment. Verizon and Comcast, companies like these need content for their portals. There is a lot of money involved."
Future development
Barr's real satisfaction comes from seeing something that he envisioned come to life - and in full-color streaming video.
Pat Riley, Miami Heat coach/president, signed up first. Four other teams followed. Several others are testing the service and three recently inquired about it.
"The word is starting to spread," Barr said.
In the next few weeks, SST also will begin logging defensive situations and player tendencies, which will make it even more applicable.
NBA Entertainment is in talks with the company to use the technology for an interactive feature that fans can use if they sign up for NBA.com's "Velvet Ropes" service for the playoffs.
"Everybody in the NBA will have Synergy's service," predicted Donnie Walsh, president and CEO of the Indiana Pacers, one of Barr's clients. "They're way ahead of all their competition."
And this technology evidently is not gathering dust.
"If you played video 24 hours a day, seven days a week, non-stop for 2 1/2 months, that's the amount of video our clients have viewed in the last 5 1/2 months," Lahr said. "That's a fairly small set of teams, but their usage is extremely heavy."
And Barr's company also provides in-arena "cache" servers for clients. All SST's logged info goes right to the servers, which will hold a season-and-a-half worth of data and video, allowing people throughout an organization to utilize the service in-house all at the same time without tying up valuable bandwidth.
"Garrick was right," Lahr said. "What we're providing is what NBA teams needed."
The Pacers' Walsh agreed.
"It's exactly what NBA teams want and can use," he said. "From our team's standpoint, we can have everything we want on a team we're playing tomorrow before we even get on a plane after a game tonight.
"From a college scouting standpoint, if we want to draft a guy and we expect him to be able to post up, in minutes you can look at every post-up play he's been involved in and break down what he does when he posts up.
"From an international scouting perspective, it can be a big cost saver. It's really pragmatic."
Griffin, who said the Suns are testing the service, is hoping to sell USA Basketball on Barr's technology to prepare for the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
And he believes it might be an even easier sell once NBA front-office types figure out that it can help them as much as their coach.
"A lot of times, guys are going to say, 'I'm not spending $50,000 on that for my coach,' " Griffin said, laughing. " 'But I'll spend $50,000 on me!' "
http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/sports/articles/0413sportstech0413.html
by Bob Young
The Arizona Republic
Apr. 13, 2006 12:00 AM
Maybe Garrick Barr was born to revolutionize the way professional basketball teams use technology.
He might change the way you use it, too, if you happen to be a basketball fan.
What Barr, a former Suns video coordinator, has done is build Synergy Sports Technology, a Web-based service for NBA teams that is expanding into colleges, international basketball and soon might become part of an interactive fan feature at NBA.com.
Essentially, his company puts statistical data and video together, and makes it available to teams almost immediately and for many different uses, from player evaluation to scouting to coaching.
"He played college basketball, coached in college, son of an engineer. It's the perfect marriage of the technology and the person," said David Griffin, vice president and assistant general manager of the Suns.
"He's the most qualified person on the planet for what he has done."
Barr launched the company three years ago. This is the first NBA season in which the company has provided full service to teams, but Barr said the company will be cash-flow positive by next year.
Right now, five NBA teams are using the service, paying between $50,000 and $75,000 for the season, and several others are considering it.
It's less clear when his investors will begin seeing a return because the company already is looking into growing the core business by expanding to other sports while exploring other ways to leverage the technology.
Among Barr's backers is the NBA's biggest techie, Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban, who made his fortune by co-founding Broadcast.com.
How it works
Let's say that Cuban's Mavericks have just lost to the Suns and gave up too many fastbreak points in the loss.
Mavericks coach Avery Johnson wants to know what went wrong. About 20 minutes after the end of the game, his video scouts can use Barr's service to provide video "edits" - clips - of every Phoenix fastbreak in the game.
He also can get every Dallas transitional situation for the entire season to see how that night's game compared to others.
Or, he could ask for:
• All the plays in which Steve Nash came off to his left in the Suns' bread-and-butter pick-and-roll game - in that game or all season.
• The plays in which Nash went all the way to the basket, pulled up for jump shot or passed.
• A breakdown to determine how successful Nash is when he goes left, whether he's more likely to shoot or pass in that situation and whether he's more likely to go to the rim or pull up - all with links to video clips to see why it all happens.
And it can all be done online with a couple of mouse clicks, or downloaded and put on a DVD - just in case the Mavericks have a plane to catch and Johnson wants to look at it all of this in the air.
"The system allows us to look at every play, in every way, and to tie it back to stats," Cuban said via e-mail. "So, we can watch how we played every pick and roll, track our success rate and also see how other teams are doing it.
"It's an invaluable resource that makes us smarter when combined with a lot of advanced statistical analysis we do."
Basketball background
It helps that Barr knows the game as well as the technology.
A former high school teammate of Paul Westphal's at Aviation High in Redondo Beach, Calif., Barr played at UC Irvine and later worked as an assistant coach under Westphal at Grand Canyon College.
Barr came with Westphal to the Suns, and in 11 years as the team's video coach he came up with a lot of ideas about how to combine statistical information with video to more efficiently analyze players and teams.
Usually, he gave those ideas to the various vendors, who called on the Suns with their latest video editing equipment.
"Everybody that came in wanted to hire him," Griffin remembers.
Barr noticed as he went around the league with the Suns that much of that equipment ended up gathering dust.
So in 1998 he founded Quantified Scouting Service, which logged virtually every possession of NBA games to provide offensive tendencies reports.
It was a first step, and in 2003, Barr decided it was time to take it further, quit giving away his ideas and launch a company that could combine the statistical analysis with video and make it available in real time.
He left the Suns.
Tech support
With the advantage of a coaching background, he knew what his clients would want, and with an intimate knowledge of his competition, he knew what they were - or were not - getting.
What he didn't know was whether technology would support it or what it might cost.
A family member hooked him up with Nils Lahr, a former Microsoft engineer and chief architect of iBeam Broadcast Corp., which once was one of Silicon Valley's first big online content providers.
To say Lahr is an expert on streaming video is an understatement. In the tech world, he is Michael Jordan, Shaquille O'Neal, a superstar.
"Garrick knew what he wanted to do. He could imagine the workflow. He just didn't know if the technology would get him from point A to point B," Lahr said.
Lahr got him there.
"When I was at Microsoft six years ago, there is nothing we're doing now that we couldn't have done then," he said. "But the startup cost at that time would have been millions and millions. We had to invent a few things that didn't exist for this, but the technology at that time would have worked. However, the business model would have killed it.
"Now, every two or three months you read a press release about somebody in sports trying to do something else on the Internet. The industry has grown by $200million just from last year. It's growing exponentially.
"With streaming video and stats together on the Internet, we can include fans in ways that have never been possible. And people are willing to experiment. Verizon and Comcast, companies like these need content for their portals. There is a lot of money involved."
Future development
Barr's real satisfaction comes from seeing something that he envisioned come to life - and in full-color streaming video.
Pat Riley, Miami Heat coach/president, signed up first. Four other teams followed. Several others are testing the service and three recently inquired about it.
"The word is starting to spread," Barr said.
In the next few weeks, SST also will begin logging defensive situations and player tendencies, which will make it even more applicable.
NBA Entertainment is in talks with the company to use the technology for an interactive feature that fans can use if they sign up for NBA.com's "Velvet Ropes" service for the playoffs.
"Everybody in the NBA will have Synergy's service," predicted Donnie Walsh, president and CEO of the Indiana Pacers, one of Barr's clients. "They're way ahead of all their competition."
And this technology evidently is not gathering dust.
"If you played video 24 hours a day, seven days a week, non-stop for 2 1/2 months, that's the amount of video our clients have viewed in the last 5 1/2 months," Lahr said. "That's a fairly small set of teams, but their usage is extremely heavy."
And Barr's company also provides in-arena "cache" servers for clients. All SST's logged info goes right to the servers, which will hold a season-and-a-half worth of data and video, allowing people throughout an organization to utilize the service in-house all at the same time without tying up valuable bandwidth.
"Garrick was right," Lahr said. "What we're providing is what NBA teams needed."
The Pacers' Walsh agreed.
"It's exactly what NBA teams want and can use," he said. "From our team's standpoint, we can have everything we want on a team we're playing tomorrow before we even get on a plane after a game tonight.
"From a college scouting standpoint, if we want to draft a guy and we expect him to be able to post up, in minutes you can look at every post-up play he's been involved in and break down what he does when he posts up.
"From an international scouting perspective, it can be a big cost saver. It's really pragmatic."
Griffin, who said the Suns are testing the service, is hoping to sell USA Basketball on Barr's technology to prepare for the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
And he believes it might be an even easier sell once NBA front-office types figure out that it can help them as much as their coach.
"A lot of times, guys are going to say, 'I'm not spending $50,000 on that for my coach,' " Griffin said, laughing. " 'But I'll spend $50,000 on me!' "
http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/sports/articles/0413sportstech0413.html
Thursday, August 16, 2007
Bibby Heading East?
Rumors coming out of Miami have the Heat and the Kings discussing a trade to bring Mike Bibby to the Eastern Conference. Bibby would add the steady point guard that the Heat have been searching for.
To make this trade logical for both teams, a handful of other players would need to be included. Here is the trade that would allow the Heat to acquire Bibby:
Sacramento trades Mike Bibby and Kenny Thomas to Miami for Jason Williams, Udonis Haslem, Wayne Simien, Michael Doleac, Dorrell Wright, and a first round pick.
With Bibby being the top talent in ths trade, the Heat would certainly be acquiring the better talent. However, the Kings would see a great deal of cap relief from doing this trade.
2007-08 Salaries
Dorrell Wright $2,040,746
Jason Williams $8,937,500
Michael Doleac $3,120,000
Wayne Simien $997,800
Udonis Haslem $6,050,000 (3 years remaining)
Kenny Thomas $7,875,000 (3 years remaining)
Mike Bibby $13,500,000 (2 years remaining)
In 2007-08, salaries almost match.
In 2008-09, Sacramento saves almost $16,000,000.
In 2009-10, Sacramento saves almost $1,500,000.
Additionally, Haslem is only 27 years old and has a great deal of experience already. Haslem has developed a nice mid-range shot. He shoots especially well from the baseline and has shown a knack for aggressive offensive rebounding. Haslem needs to add some post moves, possibly a jump hook or an improved drop stop. He plays with a great deal of energy, moves his feet well, and plays physical defense. In Sacramento, Haslem and Hawes would be nice building blocks for the Kings rebuilding.
Dorrell Wright has shown some flashes of his potential, but needs more playing time. The Kings would likely consider releasing Michael Doleac and Wayne Simien.
Another possibility for this trade to work would simply be removing the first round pick and including Shareef Abdur-Rahim. However, it is widely believed that Abdur-Rahim is a better player than Thomas and the Kings would certainly try to hang on to him.
By going ahead with this trade, the Kings would be able to gain a great deal of cap flexibility after this season. With potentially Gilbert Arenas, Shawn Marion, and Jermaine O'Neal all becoming free agents the Kings could have the cap room to sign one of these guys. For Miami, Pat Riley would finally land a reliable point guard to play alongside of Wade. Kenny Thomas could step into Haslem's role at the power forward, while only seeing a small dropoff in scoring and rebounding. However, with available spots on the roster after this trade, the Heat would be able to persue an available big man. Melvin Ely, Corliss Williamson, Danny Fortson, and especially P.J. Brown would all fill in nicely here.
With Brown, Thomas, and an additional free agent joining the mix of Wade, Walker, Mourning, Parker, O'Neal, and Hardaway would have a strong enough nine man rotation to compete for the finals. If the Kings go ahead with this trade, it would jump start their rebuilding process with a great deal of roster and cap flexiblity.
To make this trade logical for both teams, a handful of other players would need to be included. Here is the trade that would allow the Heat to acquire Bibby:
Sacramento trades Mike Bibby and Kenny Thomas to Miami for Jason Williams, Udonis Haslem, Wayne Simien, Michael Doleac, Dorrell Wright, and a first round pick.
With Bibby being the top talent in ths trade, the Heat would certainly be acquiring the better talent. However, the Kings would see a great deal of cap relief from doing this trade.
2007-08 Salaries
Dorrell Wright $2,040,746
Jason Williams $8,937,500
Michael Doleac $3,120,000
Wayne Simien $997,800
Udonis Haslem $6,050,000 (3 years remaining)
Kenny Thomas $7,875,000 (3 years remaining)
Mike Bibby $13,500,000 (2 years remaining)
In 2007-08, salaries almost match.
In 2008-09, Sacramento saves almost $16,000,000.
In 2009-10, Sacramento saves almost $1,500,000.
Additionally, Haslem is only 27 years old and has a great deal of experience already. Haslem has developed a nice mid-range shot. He shoots especially well from the baseline and has shown a knack for aggressive offensive rebounding. Haslem needs to add some post moves, possibly a jump hook or an improved drop stop. He plays with a great deal of energy, moves his feet well, and plays physical defense. In Sacramento, Haslem and Hawes would be nice building blocks for the Kings rebuilding.
Dorrell Wright has shown some flashes of his potential, but needs more playing time. The Kings would likely consider releasing Michael Doleac and Wayne Simien.
Another possibility for this trade to work would simply be removing the first round pick and including Shareef Abdur-Rahim. However, it is widely believed that Abdur-Rahim is a better player than Thomas and the Kings would certainly try to hang on to him.
By going ahead with this trade, the Kings would be able to gain a great deal of cap flexibility after this season. With potentially Gilbert Arenas, Shawn Marion, and Jermaine O'Neal all becoming free agents the Kings could have the cap room to sign one of these guys. For Miami, Pat Riley would finally land a reliable point guard to play alongside of Wade. Kenny Thomas could step into Haslem's role at the power forward, while only seeing a small dropoff in scoring and rebounding. However, with available spots on the roster after this trade, the Heat would be able to persue an available big man. Melvin Ely, Corliss Williamson, Danny Fortson, and especially P.J. Brown would all fill in nicely here.
With Brown, Thomas, and an additional free agent joining the mix of Wade, Walker, Mourning, Parker, O'Neal, and Hardaway would have a strong enough nine man rotation to compete for the finals. If the Kings go ahead with this trade, it would jump start their rebuilding process with a great deal of roster and cap flexiblity.
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
Getting the Heat Back to the Top
The Miami Heat, winners of the 2005-06 NBA Championship, struggled throughout last year, ending with a first round loss to the Chicago Bulls in the first round. The Heat only managed to win 44 games during the regular season, and were plagued by injuries from Shaquille O'Neal, Dwyane Wade, and Jason Williams throughout.
So how can the Heat return to the top of the Eastern Conference? Miami is currently taking the first step, by trying to sign Milwaukee Bucks point guard, Mo Williams. Miami can only offer Williams the mid-level exception, which would mean the most he could earn in a five-year deal with the Heat is about $35,000,000. The Bucks, however, could offer substantially more, and are already believed to have made an offer in the $40,000,000 range. However, its believed by many that Williams would take less money to join the Heat in order to have a better shot to win the championship.
The current Bucks point guard, Williams, is 6'1" and only 24 years old. Williams and Wade would make a great backcourt for years to come. In fact, in the 2006-07 season, Williams was one of only seven players who averaged greater than or equal to 17 points per game, 4 rebounds per game, and 6 assists per game. LeBron James, Gilbert Arenas, Tracy McGrady, Chris Paul, Baron Davis, and Dwyane Wade were the others to reach this benchmark.
Williams is a playmaker at the point guard position, who is known as a strong competitor. He has good strength for his size, but must improve defensively. His passing and ball handling could still stand to get better. He has been able to avoid injury for the most part in his career and excels when creating off-the-dribble. Shooting off-the-catch is another spot that Williams could still improve at, but he has had a great work ethic throughout his career. With Wade and Williams in the backcourt together, the Heat would be able to pencil in at least 40 points and 10 assists a night at the guard positions.
Once they acquire Mo Williams, the Heat should turn around and trade Jason Williams. The current Heat guard is in the last year of his contract, which pays him $8,937,500. Charlotte (Walter Herrmann, Jared Dudley), Atlanta (Josh Childress, Shelden Williams), Sacramento (Corliss Williamson, Quincy Douby), Clippers (Tim Thomas), Nuggets (Kenyon Martin, Eduardo Najera), or Cavaliers (Drew Gooden) may all be interested in Miami’s current point guard.
The next move for Heat general manager, Pat Riley, should be to sign free agent guard Steve Francis. Francis is a combo-guard who would be perfect off-the-bench for the Heat. Francis would be able to spell either Mo Williams or Wade and fill in well at either spot. After receiving a $30,000,000 buyout from Portland, Francis would most likely be willing to take a large paycut to have a chance to win his first championship.
With a nucleaus of O'Neal, Wade, Antoine Walker, Udonis Haslem, Alonzo Morning and then adding in Mo Williams, Steve Francis, and the player Riley gets back in return for Jason Williams, the Heat would have a much more successful season next year. Miami also has three young players to develop in power forward, Wayne Simien, shooting guard, Daequan Cook, and small forward, Dorrell Wright. With these series of moves (signing Mo Williams, trading Jason Williams, and signing Steve Francis) the Heat will be a younger squad and should be less injury-prone and ready to make a run next season.
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