A day after ESPN's Adrian Wojnarowski reported the Miami Heat were preparing to offer Precious Achiuwa and Goran Dragic in a sign-and-trade deal with the Toronto Raptors to land Kyle Lowry, one of the top free agents on the market, the two sides and Lowry agreed to the deal Monday, with Lowry getting a three-year, $90 million contract.
Will Lowry get the Heat back in contention for the championship after they reached the 2020 NBA Finals? How reasonable is the return for the Raptors, who decided not to trade Lowry at the deadline as he reached the end of the most impressive career in franchise history?
The deal
Heat get: Kyle Lowry
Raptors get: Goran Dragic, Precious Achiuwa
Miami Heat: C
Despite the number of teams potentially in the Lowry sweepstakes that created additional cap room with trades last week, the Heat always loomed as the favorite. Lowry's mentality has long seemed like a fit for the vaunted "Heat Culture," and he gets a chance to play with multiple All-Stars in Bam Adebayo and Jimmy Butler while living in Miami.
The interesting question for the Heat, one they apparently weighed up until Sunday's deadline, was how to make an offer to Lowry. Had they declined Dragic's $19.4 million team option and pulled qualifying offers to restricted free agents Kendrick Nunn and Duncan Robinson -- presumably with an agreement in place to re-sign at least one of the two -- Miami could've gotten up to about $26.6 million in cap space, a little less than Lowry's eventual starting price.
However, using cap space to sign Lowry carried a risk if the Heat couldn't quickly agree to a deal with one of their restricted free agents and would also have meant forfeiting their $9.5 million non-taxpayer midlevel exception in favor of the $4.9 million room midlevel. The latter piece could be key as Miami looks to fortify a frontcourt that, for now, has only third-year forward KZ Okpala under contract besides the two All-Stars and Robinson.
Maximizing the midlevel looms large as Miami tries to fill out a roster to win now with the constraint of a hard cap imposed at the $143 million luxury-tax apron. The Heat face that hard cap by virtue of receiving Lowry in a sign-and-trade but also would have triggered it by using the non-taxpayer midlevel. The five-year, $90 million deal for Robinson reported Monday by Wojnarowski will leave only a small amount of money available to spend re-signing the team's own free agents for above the minimum -- not enough to retain Nunn's cap hold and use the full midlevel. Otherwise, Miami will be limited to minimum salaries and the midlevel.
The Heat have a good chance of attracting above-average minimum candidates to South Beach, but they need to get a starting-caliber forward with the midlevel to fill the role that Jae Crowder did as Miami's fifth starter during the run to the 2020 NBA Finals. The Heat never adequately replaced Crowder last season, one reason they were swept unceremoniously by the eventual champion Milwaukee Bucks in the opening round of the playoffs.
To justify adding the 35-year-old Lowry, the Heat will have to do much better in the 2022 postseason. Adding Lowry means choosing the timeline of Butler (32 in September) over Adebayo (who just turned 24). Perhaps that was inevitable for the Heat, who have never been much for rebuilding under team president Pat Riley, now 76. It also might reflect growing pessimism in the ability to chase superstars in their prime via free agency with so many of this year's top potential free agents foregoing that opportunity in order to extend their contracts.
If Miami agrees to a contract extension with Butler, who holds a player option for 2022-23, the Heat would be locked in to this core for the next three seasons with Adebayo, Butler and Lowry collectively making more than $100 million per year in that span before considering a possible long-term deal for Robinson.
There won't be much help coming through the draft with Miami already out a protected first-round pick starting in 2023 and having given swap rights on next year's first-rounder to the Houston Rockets (who can swap it for one they have coming from the Brooklyn Nets). And the Heat are now down another young prospect in Achiuwa, who performed at a sub-replacement level for a center as a rookie but flashed defensive versatility to fit in Miami's switch-heavy schemes.
I'm not sure the Heat have gone all in on a serious championship contender. Lowry, who projects as the most valuable player in 2021-22 to change teams in free agency, will undoubtedly help. But aside from the surprising run in the 2020 bubble playoffs, Miami has rarely looked one player away. Last season's Heat finished the year outscoring opponents by two points total, behind six other teams in the Eastern Conference and barely ahead of the Indiana Pacers (minus-3).
A breakthrough campaign for 2020 bubble star Tyler Herro could help change Miami's outlook, giving the bench a needed anchor. Still, even if Lowry looks more like he did in 2019-20 than during his final season with the Raptors spent awkwardly in Tampa Bay, I think the Heat project behind the defending champion Bucks and Nets in the East at a minimum. (Where the Philadelphia 76ers rank in the East hierarchy is more fluid depending on what happens with Ben Simmons.)
Given that fact, much as I believe in Lowry's game, I think Miami might have been better off letting another team splurge on him in free agency.
Toronto Raptors: B
Without knowing the exact details of the offers the Raptors got at the trade deadline, it's tough to know what to make of their decision to keep Lowry then and allow him to conclude his storied Toronto career by changing teams in free agency rather than midseason.
The upside of that decision is the Raptors avoided taking on any long-term contracts that wouldn't have fit with their young core. Dragic has a single season remaining at $19.44 million and Wojnarowski reported Sunday that there's interest in acquiring him from the Dallas Mavericks and New Orleans Pelicans. (One key question: Are those teams interested in taking on Dragic without sending a contract in return or would Toronto swap him for a slightly smaller deal?)
Moving Dragic elsewhere would leave the Raptors with Achiuwa, whose versatility also fits how they like to play defensively. I'm intrigued by what Toronto's development staff can do with Achiuwa as a shooter, given the way we've seen Pascal Siakam add to his game. Achiuwa actually made 13 3-pointers during his lone season at the University of Memphis but shot just 60% from the line there and dropped to 51% as an NBA rookie.
Achiuwa could also stand to become a more effective finisher. He made just 62% of his attempts in the restricted area, per NBA Advanced Stats, well below the average for centers of 68%. Achiuwa has the physical ability to be more effective around the rim but occasionally prefers to use too much finesse instead.