The Miami Heat are adding forward Trevor Ariza to strengthen their rotation on the wing, acquiring him via a trade with the Oklahoma City Thunder in exchange for Meyers Leonard and a second-round pick, according to a report by ESPN's Adrian Wojnarowski.
Ariza has been training away from the Thunder, anticipating an eventual trade to a contender.
What can Miami expect from Ariza? And how did the Thunder do in the deal?
Kevin Pelton breaks down the deal and hands out his trade grades.
The deal
Heat get: Trevor Ariza
Thunder get: Meyers Leonard, 2027 second-round pick
Get more trade grades from Pelton here
Miami Heat: B
For the second consecutive year, the Heat are adding a player who has yet to see action during the season. That worked out reasonably well for Miami with Andre Iguodala, so now the Heat are trying again with Ariza.
We last saw Ariza on an NBA court in March 2020 prior to the league's stoppage of play due to the COVID-19 pandemic. He made the difficult decision to opt out of the restart in order to participate in a court-ordered visitation period with his son, then was included as matching salary in a series of offseason trades that landed him with Oklahoma City. Ariza never reported to the Thunder due to what have been termed "personal" reasons.
All of that is to say it's tough to know what to expect from Ariza, who turned 35 last June and has accumulated plenty of mileage during an NBA career that began at age 19. Per Basketball-Reference.com, his 31,650 career minutes rank ninth among active players. Ariza was ineffective during the first three months of the 2019-20 season after signing with the Sacramento Kings as a free agent, only to look rejuvenated after a midseason trade to the Portland Trail Blazers, for whom he started at small forward and served as a primary defensive option on the wing.
Offensively, Ariza's value will always be tied to his ability to knock down open 3-pointers. He's attempted more 3s than 2s each of his past seven seasons, while his 3-point percentage has been as high as 41% (in 2013-14) and as low as 33% (in 2018-19). He was hot during his brief stint with the Blazers, knocking down 40% of his attempts in a limited sample of 85 attempts. Ultimately, Miami should expect Ariza to settle in around league average beyond the arc.
The bigger question is what Ariza has left defensively. Portland's struggling defense was slightly better with Ariza on the court, as he provided more size at 6-foot-8 to match up with small forwards than the player for whom he was acquired, 6-foot-4 Kent Bazemore. Ariza's length should make him a good fit for the Heat's zone, and his ability to guard both wing spots and power forwards only adds to Erik Spoelstra's flexibility dictating matchups.
Essentially, Ariza should play the role Miami hoped Maurice Harkless would fill as a replacement for Jae Crowder in the frontcourt rotation. Both his strength and shooting should prove upgrades on Harkless, one of Ariza's predecessors at small forward in Portland.
Given how little the Heat gave up to get Ariza, the big question here is whether this was the best use of Leonard's effectively expiring contract. Miami could have combined his salary with one of the team's other players without guaranteed 2021-22 contracts to acquire a more expensive player such as LaMarcus Aldridge or Kyle Lowry.
Those options are still on the table for the Heat because they still have so many other players potentially in the last years of their contracts, three of whom (Goran Dragic, Iguodala and Kelly Olynyk) make more than Leonard. But those are all rotation players, meaning Miami must now evaluate whether the player coming back is actually a sizable upgrade on them.
Oklahoma City Thunder: B+
The Thunder ended up with Ariza as part of a three-team trade that may already have netted them a second-round pick from the Heat (they get the better pick between Dallas' and Miami's in 2023) to go with the two first-round picks Oklahoma City has coming from the Heat. We can add this pick as part of the haul from that original trade, which also sent Justin Jackson and another second-round pick in 2026 to the Thunder.
It was always clear Ariza had no place in Oklahoma City's plans, so it was just a matter of what the Thunder could get in return before the deadline. Perhaps the most interesting part of this deal from Oklahoma City's standpoint is what it means for the team's trade exceptions.
By using part of the $19.5 million exception generated in the Danilo Gallinari trade to take on Leonard's contract, the Thunder can create a new exception for the value of Ariza's $12.8 million salary that won't expire until after the 2022 trade deadline. Oklahoma City will then have to choose between maintaining those trade exceptions this summer (including the giant $27.5 million one from the Steven Adams trade that expires during the offseason) or renouncing them in order to utilize cap space instead.
As for Leonard, who was fined $50,000 and suspended from team activities for a week as punishment for using an anti-Semitic slur while playing video games on a livestream last Monday, it seems unrealistic that he'll ever set foot in the Thunder's facilities. Leonard is out for the season due to a shoulder injury. Most likely, Oklahoma City will waive him to clear a roster spot after the trade deadline if he's not included in another trade before then.