As for Ja Morant<\/a>, I think many are getting too caught up in who Ja was at his best, as opposed to who he has been in recent years. In some ways, even more than who might be sent out, it comes down to whether Ja is worth the investment, considering he is earning $39.4 million this season, then on the books for $42 million and $45 million the next two seasons. So it comes down to whether the Heat believe that money could be better spent elsewhere. So it should come down to this: If Memphis is willing to salary dump, as the Hawks did with Trae Young, would that, in itself, be enough to tempt the Heat (by sending out the expiring contracts of Simone Fontecchio and Terry Rozier)? From there, the questions only increase: Send out Davion Mitchell? Tyler Herro? Draft capital? Typically when the Heat bring in distressed assets, it is at minimal cost. In this case, anything more than minimal cost . . . pass. So the reality is the ball mostly is in the Grizzlies\u2019 court. And the reality is there always are ample desperate teams, as the Wizards showed with Trae. Yes, Saturday looked awful for the Heat in Indiana. But you also need more than this small sample size before rash judgements.<\/p>\nQ: The Heat aren\u2019t getting any salary-cap relief from Terry Rozier\u2019s suspension, so why not insist that he remain with the team unless convicted? What happened to innocent until proven guilty? And an active status could increase his trade value. \u2013 Roger, West Palm Beach.<\/p>\n
A: Because the NBA, and particularly Commissioner Adam Silver, have significant latitude when it comes to the integrity of the game. So even though Terry Rozier has not\u00a0 been convicted of any misdeeds in a court of law, there is the reality of the association with unsavory types. That, and even being charged by the feds, seemingly stands as enough for Silver\u2019s elastic powers to be put into place. And, again, it\u2019s not as if Terry can\u2019t reclaim his salary, with those paychecks placed in an escrow-type interest-bearing account. Sometimes something not being a good look can be enough for the league to try to make it go away \u2013 which is exactly what has been the case with Terry. And even if Terry were on the roster, it is highly doubtful he would be playing, when considering the Heat\u2019s jammed wing rotation of Tyler Herro, Norman Powell, Davion Mitchell, Jaime Jaquez Jr., Pelle Larsson, Dru Smith and even Kasparas Jakucionis. As it is, there only was garbage time Saturday for Dru and Kasparas.<\/p>\n
Q: Hey Ira, I am not a conspiracy theorist, but Chicago sure was missing some good players to play in an important game that might have an impact on sixth seed or play-in positioning.\u00a0 \u2013 David, Venice.<\/p>\n
A: Correct, particularly in the case of noted Heat killer Josh Giddey and his hamstring issue. But the counter could be that by the time the teams play the still-to-be-rescheduled makeup date<\/a>, the Heat might have gained needed traction with their lineup in the wake of Tyler Herro\u2019s return. So there is that, as well. The reality is that if the Heat aren\u2019t good enough to beat the Bulls at Chicago\u2019s best, then they probably aren\u2019t good enough. And they might not be, based on Saturday in Indiana.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Q: Ira, when was the last time an All-Star was available and Pat Riley did not at least…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":529374,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3795],"tags":[3879,7,294,165,293,177,4070,189,3880,6,66],"class_list":{"0":"post-529373","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-memphis-grizzlies","8":"tag-ask-ira","9":"tag-basketball","10":"tag-grizzlies","11":"tag-latest-headlines","12":"tag-memphis","13":"tag-memphis-grizzlies","14":"tag-memphisgrizzlies","15":"tag-miami-heat","16":"tag-miami-heat-blog","17":"tag-nba","18":"tag-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115876363365573295","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/529373","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=529373"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/529373\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/529374"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=529373"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=529373"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=529373"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}