The Miami Heat may have missed out on Damian Lillard, but here’s the perfect trade idea with Portland to land Jrue Holiday in South Beach.
The Miami Heat may have missed out on trading for Damian Lillard, but there’s an easy response to the Milwaukee Bucks becoming the new favorite in the Eastern Conference. It’s time for Pat Riley and the Heat to pick the phone back up and trade with the Portland Trail Blazers for Jrue Holiday.
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Jrue Holiday is a drastically different kind of star than Lillard, but no one knows the Milwaukee Bucks more intimately and will be better prepared to slow down the combination of Dame and Giannis Antetokounmpo than Holiday will. The 33-year-old guard is only on contract through one more season after this one (player option), making him a less dangerous long-term investment than Lillard, who will be due $63 million when he’s 37.
Although the Blazers apparently balked at any of the Heat’s offers for Damian Lillard, Holiday likely won’t require the same kind of assets in a deal, especially as the Blazers enter a rebuilding period without Lillard.
Here’s the perfect Heat-Blazers trade idea to keep pace in the East and land one of the league’s best defensive players:
Heat get: Jrue Holiday, Matisse Thybulle
Blazers get: Duncan Robinson, Kyle Lowry, Nikola Jovic, 2028 1st round pick (lottery protected.
While Holiday won’t come cheap, the Heat have the salaries to easily build to his $36.8 million yearly value without losing too much on the court. Lowry is a fan favorite, but Holiday would represent a massive upgrade over the 37-year-old point guard at this stage of his career, and Matisse Thybulle feels like the kind of defensive-minded wing who would fit right in with the heralded Heat culture.
Perimeter shooting could an issue after this deal, especially after losing Max Strus to Cleveland in free agency, but the Heat have shown they can scrounge up shooters from the undrafted ranks and could move on from Duncan Robinson and his long-term contract.
Keeping Tyler Herro out of this deal would be a must, as he made sense as trade bait for Lillard, but not for Holiday. A starting lineup of Holiday-Herro-Jimmy Butler-Caleb Martin-Bam Adebayo would immediately be one of the league’s most dangerous groups, offering a great mix of defensive toughness and scoring prowess.
Most importantly for Miami, Holiday has shown he can thrive as the third star on a championship team, as he did just that with Khris Middleton and Giannis in Milwaukee. He’d fit in perfectly in Miami’s locker room as an intelligent, hard-nosed, point-of-attack defender (5-time All-Defense) who can create something for himself late in the shot clock but doesn’t need the ball in his hands to provide value. Holiday is used to his bigs pushing the ball up the court like Bam Adebayo does for Miami, so there wouldn’t need to be a huge adjustment in how he (or Miami) likes to play in transition.
Miami simply needs someone who can at least slow down guys like Lillard, as Lowry has aged out of that role and Herro will be attacked relentlessly as is. With Gabe Vincent on the Lakers, the Heat badly need a guard who can make life hard for the elite point guards in the East (Lillard, Jalen Brunson, Trae Young, Tyrese Maxey, Darius Garland, Tyrese Haliburton, etc.) who isn’t Jimmy Butler. Holiday isn’t a complete stopgap solution defensively, of course, but he’s about as good as it gets on the trade market.
Missing out on Lillard could be a blessing in disguise, as difficult as it seems at the moment. Being able to keep Herro and potentially valuable rookies like Jaime Jaquez Jr. might feel like a weak consolation, but acquiring a perfect fit in Holiday in a Heat-Blazers trade could have the Heat loaded and back in the NBA Finals once again for the 2023-24 NBA season.