The Miami Heat beat the Boston Celtics in the Giannis Antetokounmpo sweepstakes this offseason, and yet, it didn’t feel like it was a sure thing that the boys in South Beach were on the same level as the Celtics. Giannis is Giannis, of course, but the rest of the roster felt like a question mark.
That likely factored into why Milwaukee sent Antetokounmpo to Miami instead of Boston. There was a stronger likelihood that things could go wrong with the Heat than with the Celtics. However, after the Heat lost their first three games of the season, something else has been exposed: trading for Giannis unfortunately came at the cost of compromising the rest of the roster.
That’s what’s led to them being outclassed by Minnesota and Detroit in their first two games of the season, then losing to Charlotte. Even more painful is that they nearly came back from being down 20, reinserted Antetokounmpo, and still couldn’t finish the job, even as the Hornets were down Kon Knueppel.
It’s a long season. The Heat have time to figure this out, but as far as starts go, this was about as horrific as they could have. It also sheds light on the problem with trading so many assets. On the surface, trading for Antetokounmpo when the best player headed back in the deal is Tyler Herro sounds like a no-brainer, but the trade also meant cutting ties with Kel’el Ware, Jaime Jaquez Jr., and Kasparas Jakucionis.
None of these four players will amount to the kind of player Antetokounmpo is, but that doesn’t change the fact that they are players that playoff contenders like having because they round out the edges. Also, because the Giannis trade included Bobby Portis, Miami couldn’t afford to keep Norman Powell, so there was another quality piece gone.
Three games in, this really hasn’t been much better than the situation the Greek Freak left in Milwaukee.
This is what Boston wanted to avoid
So we all know that the Celtics were offering Jaylen Brown and first-round draft capital to the Bucks, but that’s where they drew the line. The Bucks also wanted Hugo Gonzalez and Baylor Scheierman, but the Celtics refused to include them.
Many think this is why Boston lost Giannis to Miami. While, personally, I think the Bucks wanted Antetokounmpo with the Heat because their assets were more likely to pan out; it’s also very much plausible that when they asked Brad Stevens for them, Stevens responded by asking if they had a deal if those two were included, and when the Bucks said no, he hung up.
Those are not going to be better than Giannis. That’s for sure, but if the Bucks demanded more than Brown, Gonzalez, and Scheierman, they, too, were at risk of gutting their roster, which may not have been worth it, even if Antetokounmpo and Jayson Tatum would have been awesome together.
It takes more than having one superstar to build a title team, yes. In fact, it takes more than having two. The modern NBA has emphasized that a title team needs to have as few flaws as possible in its rotation. An overabundance of talent does not compensate for roster holes like it used to. It’s why teams like the Kevin Durant-led Phoenix Suns failed as badly as they did.
They had Durant, Devin Booker, and Bradley Beal. Surely, that’s a recipe for success, right? Well, not when the rest of the roster doesn’t hold up their end. Not only was there redundancy in their trio of stars, but outside of those three, the Suns suffered because the talent outside of them was alarmingly unimpressive.
Things could change quickly enough for Miami, but until it does, it appears the Heat are running into a similar problem. They gave up too much to make room for one superstar. Maybe the Celtics will rue the day they didn’t trade for Giannis when they had the chance, but it’s also possible they would have rued the day they gave up as much as the Bucks would have wanted them to in a Giannis deal.
They have always said quality > quantity, but it’s becoming clear that the quantity of quality assets is becoming more valuable than the quality of a singular asset.
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