Re-Signing Goran Dragic Would Set Table for Miami Heat to Rise Again Next Season
Re-signing Goran Dragic this summer is the most important step the Miami Heat must take if they want to return to Eastern Conference contention.
From the looks of it, it'll also be the easiest.
You almost never hear a player give up negotiating leverage by unequivocally professing his desire to stay with a specific team, but Dragic came close to doing exactly that, per Jason Lieser of the Palm Beach Post:
"As long as I'm in a happy environment and a healthy organization, that's the most important thing. The next three, four, five years—I want to spend it on this kind of team, like the Miami Heat. They have great players, great coaching staff and great training staff.
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Lieser also reported that Dragic called Miami his first choice.
Team president Pat Riley seems keenly aware of how crucial it will be to capitalize on Dragic's affinity, per Joseph Goodman Jr. of the Miami Herald:
The Heat can pay whatever it takes to keep Dragic, and the salary cap is irrelevant because they have his Bird Rights, which allow them to exceed the cap to retain their own free agents (which Dragic will be when he declines his player option this summer).
With the cap going up in each of the next three offseasons, it'll be easy for them to spend big on a 29-year-old point guard in his prime.
The fit and both sides' clear intentions to stay together are just too obvious to ignore.
The Asset
Dragic is really a combo guard, which is to say he's a point guard who scores the ball well enough to function as a wing when necessary. Slotting him alongside Dwyane Wade in the backcourt gives the Heat two excellent pass-and-score dual threats.
There's work to be done on their chemistry, as B/R's Luke Petkac noted:
"Wade himself admitted that the two needed some time to mesh, and hopefully an offseason of scheming helps smooth over some of their rough edges. Dragic is a super- efficient scorer (58.6 percent true shooting with Miami), and he deserves a bigger chunk of the offense than he's been given.
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Putting the ball in Dragic's hands more often makes sense—not only because he's a brilliant scorer, but also because giving him control of the rock would unlock Wade's excellent off-ball cutting game.
This is also a big-picture issue for the Heat. As Wade enters his mid-30s, they'll need someone capable of serving as an offensive focal point in his place.
And really, it's not even the Wade-Dragic combo that matters most.
Pairing Dragic with Chris Bosh could unlock one of the league's most potent pick-and-pop weapons.
Dragic is an elite finisher at the rim, and his 69.1 percent conversion rate (which was the highest of any guard and just a hair below LeBron James' 69.7 percent figure) makes him a terrifying threat when turning the corner off a pick.
And when defenders overcommit to the screen side, Dragic just blows past them in the other direction.
And Bosh is among the league's scariest floor-stretching bigs, which means defenses will face a no-win situation when the two team up on the perimeter.
With Wade darting around off the ball, Hassan Whiteside awaiting lobs on the weak-side block and a couple of secondary shooting threats dotting the perimeter, there won't be a defense on the planet capable of taking away all of Miami's options on basic pick-and-pop sets.
Put simply, a Dragic-Bosh tandem should form the core of an absolutely elite offensive unit.
There will be other options, too.
The Options
Bosh could slide to center and help the Heat play at a faster pace, which both Dragic and head coach Erik Spoelstra have said they'd prefer next season. With Whiteside, Miami's interior defense should be stout, and his presence allows the Heat to hang with any opponent who'd rather slow things down and play a little uglier.
It's unclear what'll happen with Luol Deng, who, like Dragic and Wade, has a player option this summer. But whether the Heat retain him or replace him with a cheaper wing, they'll be in solid shape. Remember, because the Heat will be over the cap, they'll have the full mid-level and biannual exceptions to spend on rotation players regardless of what Deng decides.
Toss in the No. 10 overall pick in the upcoming draft (assuming a highly improbable twist of lottery luck doesn't send that selection to the Philadelphia 76ers), and the Heat will be able to add another rotation cog. After seeing just how badly injuries decimated the roster last year, the Heat will be happy to add some real depth.
The Heat have a ton of avenues to improvement this offseason. Aside from the additions they can make, there's a substantial chance for internal growth.
Bosh and Whiteside only logged 18 games together last year—hardly enough time to establish chemistry up front. And Dragic never played a second with Bosh. You could spin that unfamiliarity into uncertainty or even view it as a stumbling block.
But given the pure talent involved, it seems more reasonable to look at it as an opportunity.
The Return
The potential for dramatic improvement is there for the Heat, and that's saying something when you consider they would have been a playoff team rather comfortably if their core had been together down the stretch.
It's not as though Miami is building something from scratch. Instead, it's taking a proven veteran foundation, hoping for better luck on the health front and adding a couple of pieces that should make the jump into the conference's elite a breeze.
As presently constituted, the East lacks an overwhelming threat.
The Cleveland Cavaliers will be one star short if Kevin Love leaves in free agency or suffers from diminished performance upon return from injury. The Chicago Bulls are always a health risk, and neither the Atlanta Hawks nor Washington Wizards could rightly be called dominant.
There's a place for another East team at the top.
You can see the hazy outline of contention even now, and once Dragic signs on, it'll become much clearer.
Stats courtesy of NBA.com, unless otherwise indicated.
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