The Heat have reached an agreement on a trade to send center Hassan Whiteside to the Trail Blazers, according to Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN.com, who reports (via Twitter) that Portland is giving up Maurice Harkless and Meyers Leonard in the deal.
[UPDATE: Harkless to be re-routed to Clippers in four-team trade]
In acquiring Whiteside, the Blazers will secure a replacement at the five for Enes Kanter, who looks like a good bet to sign elsewhere. Whiteside figures to start at center for the Trail Blazers while Jusuf Nurkic continues to recover from a leg injury that is expected to sideline him well into the 2019/20 regular season.
Whiteside, 30, saw his role in Miami decline over the last couple years, but continued to put up strong numbers on a per-minute basis. In 72 games in 2018/19, the big man averaged 12.3 PPG, 11.3 RPG, and 1.9 BPG in just 23.3 minutes per contest.
While the Blazers will fortify their center position in the deal, their perimeter defense will take another hit. Having already lost Al-Farouq Aminu in free agency to Orlando, Portland will now part with Harkless as well. Newly-acquired forward Kent Bazemore will be leaned on heavily to help replace that duo.
As for the Heat, they’ll move on from Whiteside, who hadn’t been thrilled about having his minutes cut back during the last two seasons, publicly griping about his role on more than one occasion. Miami won’t have to take back any long-term salary in the deal, as all three players are on expiring contracts, and will save about $4.8MM based on the difference in salaries between Whiteside ($27.1MM) and the combo of Leonard ($11.3MM) and Harkless ($11MM).
Those savings could come in handy, since the Heat will face a hard cap of $138.9MM by acquiring Jimmy Butler via sign-and-trade. Speaking of that Butler trade, cap expert Albert Nahmad notes (via Twitter) that moving Whiteside won’t help solve the salary-matching issue Miami faces in that deal, so at least one more move will be required.
With Whiteside out of the picture, Bam Adebayo projects to take an ever larger role in Miami’s frontcourt.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.
Where’s FormerlyZ? Dancing in the streets no doubt
Roflmao I just saw this, and yes.
Good trade for the Blazers. Harckless and Leonard (while are fan favorites) are TRASH
Both teams are likely ecstatic. Each believes it has unloaded its trash on the other. Heat save some $$ at least (I think anyway).
What an off-season! 2k is going to have record sales.
That has more to do with Zion than anything else.
this is a solid heat move. since we all know the problems the heat had with him.
THIS IS AMAZING!!!
THE BOYHOOD DREAM HAS COME TRUE!!!! Hassan Whiteside, GET THE F_@% OFF MY TEAM!! I cant believe thos dah has finally come
Bam and Kelly dancing in the streets!
I’m tellin you!!! YES
What’s the issue with Whiteside?
Is this a real question?
I don’t know either. So please explain if you can.
They say his attitude for not playing enough and getting benched then left the bench in December but I strongly believe his attitude will change in Portland he’ll be a great pick up considering it’s a one year
I think he adopted an agenda of his own after he signed for big money. Long-term fans got tired of it, blamed him for compromising the spirit of the team that showed so much promise in the second half of 16/17. He got benched a lot. This doesn’t necessarily show up to a neutral in any one game, especially since Miami likes to scramble up the game flow.
Now let’s see what Dame/Blazers can do with him! He’d better shape up. Should be interesting. If he’s not in his lane in Portland it will be more apparent… the guards ramble & rule but the frontliners have their duties, on defense also.
What I want to know is if this somehow helps the Butler deal get done now?
no they need to make more trades
They’re an over the cap team,so they have to match salaries in the Butler deal.They have to send out a little more then 26mil for the Butler deal to work.
Interesting. The Blazers are one of the few times where Whiteside and his playnig in the block actually works. He’s an upgrade on Kanter for sure.
Suddenly the Blazers are loaded at Center when Nurkic returns. Love the trade
Does this clear enough space for the Butler deal to be completed or do they still need to trade someone else?
Miami needs someone to take Dragic.
Pat Riley is so broken!! If reports are true, you realize what hes done? He got rid of Whiteside, completes the Butler deal with only Olynyk, replaced him with the exact person I compared his contract to, a slightly $#!++tier version of him with 1 year less, fixed the 4 spot with Harkless, kept Derrick Jones Jr and Goran Dragic, and retained flexibility…let’s goooooo
Thats still just a 44 win team. Butler over Richardson doesn’t move the needle much for them.
Love the deal from both ends. As a Heat fan, we get a younger wing in Harkless and a stretch 5 in Leonard. Clears up space for Butler somewhat. On Portland side, nice move for them too. Playing next to McCollum and Lillard is exactly what he needs to flourish. Even when he comes off the bench once Nurkic returns.
Let’s see what happens when he doesnt screen for them, or when he actually does and they pull up from 27 feet lol
I was a little bit surprised to see this trade announced, but Neil Olshey did go after Whiteside hard in free agency the year the cap spiked. Same with his acquisition of Kanter last year, obviously guys that he likes and kept an eye on in case he could acquire them. I like this trade much more than if we had tried to get Kevin Love. Whiteside only has 1 year left on his contract and will benefit from a great culture in Portland and play with 2 of the best guards in the game. It is sad to see Turner, Aminu, Harkless, and Leonard all gone in two days after all these years. That’s the price of winning though, it forces you to constantly look to improve no matter if it means parting with fan favorites. I’m wondering if the Blazers have one more move for a wing planned. I really hope they don’t trade Anfernee Simons, but with the re-signing of Hood, the trade for Bazemore, and the signing of Hezonja to probably take Evan Turner’s bench unit point forward role, all of a sudden he’s way down the depth chart again. I wouldn’t be surprised to see them swing a deal for a star but I also wouldn’t be surprised to see them wait it out and be searching the trade market for deals until the trade deadline.
man I really wish the ROX would have traded Capela and CP3chins for Goran and Whiteside.
Heat would not have taken the years & money attached to Capela, even less Chris Paul.
Great trade for both teams. Moreso, for the Heat as Bam now starts at C
Whiteside is lazy asf. Huge Downgrade for yall