Miami Heat: A

In an impressive deal, the Heat both added substantial frontcourt depth and shed a pair of unwanted contracts without giving up a single draft pick from a depleted stockpile.

Somehow, Miami traded away $40.5 million in salary while barely impacting the team's current rotation. Due to injuries (Winslow), suspensions (Waiters) and deactivations (Johnson), the three players in this deal have played a combined 675 minutes this season. That's fewer than either Crowder (1,322) or Hill (901) alone played in Memphis -- and neither is even the centerpiece of the trade!

That honor goes to Iguodala, the 2015 NBA Finals MVP who spent the first three-plus months of the season at home in the Bay Area awaiting a deal. Given the last time we saw Iguodala on the court was Game 6 of the NBA Finals, it's impossible to tell exactly what the Heat are getting in him. As recently as last postseason, however, Iguodala was a crucial contributor for the Golden State Warriors, starting at small forward when Kevin Durant was out of the lineup.

As much as any of his teammates in Golden State, Iguodala perfected the art of saving his best performances for the playoffs. Over the past two seasons, he combined for nearly as many wins above replacement player (WARP) by my metric in 36 combined playoff games (3.3) as in 132 games during the regular season (4.0).

Given that track record, it will be interesting to see whether Iguodala benefits from saving all his energy for the remaining 30-some games of the regular season and the playoff run, having never reported to Memphis. In part, Iguodala's playoff value can be traced to more accurate 3-point shooting (36% over the past two postseasons, as compared to 31% in those regular seasons), which is hard to attribute to rest or focus. But Iguodala has also finished a much larger share of the Warriors' plays each of the past four postseasons, with a dramatic increase last year when he stepped in as a starter.

Taking the first three-plus months off may also help Iguodala counteract the effects of age. He turned 36 last week and is one of just three active players from the 2004 draft (the others are Trevor Ariza and Dwight Howard). At the same time, we don't know whether Iguodala's game might have atrophied at all and how long it might take him to shake off the rust.

The biggest challenge now for Erik Spoelstra is a good one: figuring out how to fit all these new players into a rotation that was already fully stocked. Miami doesn't really have positions. Bam Adebayo is a power forward on defense and often the point guard on offense and the Heat's wing players are largely interchangeable positionally. Crowder, Iguodala and Hill all fit well into that philosophy with their ability to defend multiple positions, and they should give the zone defense Spoelstra favors with the second unit more size.

Both Crowder (who started all 45 games he played for the Grizzlies) and Hill (who averaged 18.8 minutes as a reserve) will probably have to accept smaller roles in Miami. In fact, Crowder may have a tough time getting minutes at all if he continues to shoot as poorly from 3-point range as he did in Memphis (29%). Fortunately, Crowder is a 33% career shooter who should be helped by regressing to the mean.

Besides helping the Heat's chances of emerging from a crowded pack of contenders to reach the Eastern Conference finals, this move also works well for Miami long-term. The Heat shed nearly $42 million in 2020-21 salary, coming out way ahead even after giving Iguodala a two-year, $30 million extension to make him more than a rental. Without any cap holds for free agents on the books, Miami could clear some $27 million in 2020 cap space just in case Anthony Davis decides he wants to leave L.A.

Realistically, the Heat's focus is on the summer of 2021. This deal doesn't help there -- Johnson and Waiters are free agents in the summer of 2021, while Miami held a team option on Winslow -- but it doesn't hurt either. In exchange for more money in 2020-21 than he realistically could have gotten as a free agent, Iguodala also gave the Heat a 2021-22 team option.

All of this cost Miami only Winslow, and while that's surely painful after the Heat drafted him and developed him into a contributor, it wasn't clear that Winslow had a role after this year's group coalesced without him. Adebayo's emergence as a primary playmaker, with Jimmy Butler handling the ball late in games, made Winslow's ability to play point forward somewhat superfluous.

Memphis Grizzlies: D

Given how well the Grizzlies' new front office managed last summer, including getting a lightly protected first-round pick from the Warriors to take on Iguodala's salary, I'm perplexed at their logic for making this move. It seems to both hurt Memphis' pursuit of the eighth seed this season and cost the Grizzlies dearly in terms of flexibility this summer, all without equivalent upside.

Let's start with the short term. As mentioned, both Crowder and Hill were playing key roles, while Winslow has played just one game since Christmas Day due to lower back issues. Josh Jackson, recently recalled from the G League, can help fill some of those minutes, and Kyle Anderson is capable of stepping into a larger role. Still, if Grizzlies coach Taylor Jenkins thought those were better options than Crowder and Hill, they would already have been playing.

I also don't love Winslow's fit in Memphis. His best NBA season, 2018-19, came as a starting point guard in Miami. That role obviously isn't available for the Grizzlies, not with Ja Morant as the favorite for Rookie of the Year. Memphis also gave Tyus Jones a three-year, $26.5 million deal last summer to serve as Morant's veteran backup and plays him alongside another combo guard in defensive ace De'Anthony Melton.

Between starters Jaren Jackson Jr. and Jonas Valanciunas and rookie backup Brandon Clarke, the Grizzlies' frontcourt is well stocked too, which means Winslow may end up getting most of his minutes as a small forward. Jackson's ability to stretch the court as a power forward will help, but Winslow is not the outside threat that Crowder was despite being a more accurate 3-point shooter (34% career, including 38% and 37.5% the past two seasons). That's come on limited volume (last season's 4.7 attempts per 36 minutes were a career high) and teams are mostly content to help off Winslow.

It's also concerning that even when he shot so well from 3, Winslow was still an inefficient scorer overall (last season's 51.3 true shooting percentage was a career high; league average is 56.1%) because despite his size, he's a poor finisher. Crowder has nearly been as efficient during his worst shooting campaign since his rookie year.

Still, Memphis should benefit at the defensive end of the court. Miami has defended better with Winslow on the court in each of his five NBA seasons, per Cleaning the Glass, and the wing duo of Winslow and Dillon Brooks -- who agreed to a three-year, $35 million extension on Wednesday night, according to ESPN's Adrian Wojnarowski -- will give the Grizzlies ideal size and strength to defend opposing perimeter players.

The question is whether that benefit is worth taking on nearly $30 million in salary for 2020-21. Counting Brooks' extension, Memphis had been looking at about $43 million in cap space this summer. That's all gone now, as the Grizzlies will likely be better off staying over the cap and using their non-taxpayer midlevel exception. This year's crop of free agents is weak, but Memphis could have used that space to take on bad contracts for draft picks -- you know, sort of like what happened with Iguodala.

If this was the price to get Winslow, I would have much rather tried to trade Iguodala for whatever draft compensation was available with expiring contracts and held on to Crowder and Hill for a playoff push.

The Johnson-Dieng swap is interesting to the extent that it implies the Grizzlies want to play Jackson and Clarke exclusively as power forwards. That may not change much offensively, since Dieng is capable of stretching the floor as a 5, but it will put more pressure on Jackson and Clarke to defend smaller players full-time.

Minnesota Timberwolves: B-

For the Timberwolves, the motivation to swap Dieng for Johnson seems to start with their salaries. Johnson makes $880,000 less this season and $1.24 million less in 2020-21. That modest difference is important this season because the D'Angelo Russell trade pushed Minnesota into the luxury tax.

While this deal didn't get the Timberwolves out entirely, it moved them close enough that they could avoid paying the tax if they waive a player who is subsequently claimed off waivers. Alternatively, they might be willing to pay a small amount of luxury tax -- something they haven't done since 2006-07, per HeatHoops.com --because, as I noted in my breakdown of winners and losers, this year's distribution to non-taxpaying teams will be smaller than usual.

As well as Dieng has played in a reserve role this season, Minnesota has the chance to rehabilitate Johnson's value after he was sent home from training camp last fall for failing to meet conditioning targets. In the 18 games he's played, Johnson has been reasonably effective. Moving Dieng also clears more playing time at center for undrafted rookie Naz Reid, a pleasant surprise in rotation minutes while Karl-Anthony Towns was sidelined earlier this month.