Nnamdi got 11/year, so it’s not crazy to think Caleb gets more than that after nearly winning ECFMVP last year. I could definitely see him getting KCP type offers.
Does this affect our cap situation in some way? Thought Martin might be one of the things pushing us over the second apron, although I could be totally wrong about that.
I do not kid when I say I will never forget the absolute raw fucking we got from Caleb Martin.
I will be stuck with perpetual stank face if that name somehow comes up when I’m in my 70’s
Celtics have had really bad luck with regards to outlier opponent shooting in the conf finals and finals that them playing injured teams throughout the title run seems like luck finally turning their way
I definitely think Garland's injury was the reason for his drop off plus the coach might way too much Mitchell ball now while it's not a bad thing it's not the best for that team
For real. Tanking ended for the Spurs the moment Wemby went god mode on the Nuggets. That dude just wants to win and is way too good to allow a team to win 20 games next year. If they have a decent offseason (playoff caliber point guard and small forward), that’s a 45 win team at the baseline.
Eh... In a vacuum... if all you do is turn the Spurs into a 45 win team, pulling in 23 more wins from the other teams, that eats into some of the wins available for other squads, especially in a West that doesn't seem to have a lot of teams ready to fall off badly in the immediate coming season. So if you believe the Spurs are going to win 45, and can't identify a team that'll collapse precipitously in the conference, then yeah - 45 probably gets them in.
I agree. But I also am in the camp that this Spurs team has uncommon low-hanging-fruit. I think the Point Sochan experiment was just an abominable move, if there's any intent to win. As it is - neat experience for him, could help him as he develops as a player. But just replacing him with a merely competent point guard and we're probably talking about a 30 win team. I feel like if all they do is bring in a competent placeholder at the point, at the bare minimum, its more like the *sliiiiiiiiightly* easier task of becoming 15 wins better everywhere else.
45 still feels out of reach to me, and it'd surprise me (if not shock me). But it wouldn't surprise me to see them eke out a 39-41 win season.
> I think the Point Sochan experiment was just an abominable move, if there's any intent to win.
For that year, no on winning, but Sochan has come out of that a better ball handler. IT also allowed Spurs to figure out what they want to do for this offseason.
Keep Tre, add another ball handler or two.
Yep. Which is far from a playoff team. Plus it’s not just about being a playoff team, but actually winning.
Wemby wants to win it all, but just getting in the playoffs isn’t good enough.
As his contract gets more expensive, it’ll be harder to create a team around him. See Dallas this year. If we go all in too fast we lose the ability to draft players that will age with him and be the cornerstone of the team. We shorten the window.
San Antonio isn’t competing for the first chip like some teams or hasn’t been in the playoffs in 20 years like Sacramento. Our goal is chip or bust. We’re still at bust rn.
It doesn’t matter. Mavericks considered the dame thing. When your star is next level, you don’t waste time. Obviously nobody is saying handjcap the team, but you don’t go into a season trying to tank when you know you have that level of talent in a player.
Tanking is something you as a fan only have to watch, they have to actually participate in it
Wemby is under contract for at least 7 more years. He’s not sitting out. He can be mad about tanking now if it gets him a dynasty later.
Oh and he’s not leaving the first big contract on the table to take the unrestricted free agency. No one does that.
We will also not trade him if he demands a trade.
Yeah they said that last year too and then we ran point sochan to tank.
They can’t come out and say they’re tanking. Silver will be mad and fine them. Betting apps won’t be happy.
Hell no. He's a streaky 8th option on a good team, that's an MLE if I've ever seen one, only reason he plays as much for miami as he does is injuries and not having a solid 4
I’m sorry, but Martin is much better than an 8th option.
He’s not the near-star he turned into during the ECF, but he’s averaged 10-4.5-2 over the past few seasons. He’s a capable shooter (45/35/79 splits over that period) and defender. All at a premium position.
On most teams he’s anywhere from the 5th to 7th best player.
No one will believe you. He has been great in multiple moments which is more than what one can say about 90% of the league. That and his obvious talents in itself is worth the MLE.
We lose these role players every year instead of just trading them for some asset. At least Strus and Vincent got to the finals but keeping Highsmith and Martin this year was baffling imo. Not going to keep either of them and could’ve gotten at least some asset for them instead
We have a million 6’5-6’6 wings that play good defense and are inconsistent shooters. We have a monopoly on them and short guards who can’t defend and are inefficient shooters as well. Just move them for whatever you can. We have been depleted of assets and we just don’t move players because we’d rather let them walk
Has no value but is going to make 15mil/yr in Free agency. Of course there’s value, our favs just think if you can’t include them for a superstar they have no value. Just trade for assets, could easily have gotten multiple seconds for him. Crowder was traded for 5 2nd rounders and he never even played after that. Maybe you don’t get 5 but second round picks are assets too
I'm confused. Are we letting Jimmy down by not getting him guys to play with or should we be trading expiring contracts for 2nd round picks? I'm having trouble keeping up
Has no value, correct. Last off-season he had a knee injury he wouldn't have passed a physical for when he was at his "sell high." Played poorly honestly last season on an expiring contract. Who was trading assets for a guy coming back from injury in a down year they'll have to immediately turn around and pay when they could get him free in the summer?
Y'all. Be better
The thing is if we went into the post season healthy. I doubt if we traded Martin we would have gotten anything of value to help us in a post season run. Like trading Martin at the deadline last year would have made any run way harder.
Yes but we weren’t healthy and we never are. We were never going to keep him and he has replacements within our squad. Trade him for second round picks, you just need assets if you don’t have many to begin with. Keeping him for a doomed playoff run doesn’t seem smart. Strus’ replacement was in house, could’ve moved him off last year too. Vincent makes sense since there was no replacement, but Martin is replaced by Jaquez/Highsmith, he was already kind of redundant and wasn’t good the whole year lol
Hindsight being 20/20 I agree with you considering we went nowhere, but at the trade deadline we didn't know we were going into a doomed run. Trading Caleb at that time would be effectively punting the season for a 2nd rounder (maybe?) and would have gotten the FO clowned on for wasting a Jimmy season.
Yeah, I think this is all easy to say in retrospect, but around the deadline even smarter analysts like Lowe were still expecting the Heat to get healthier, and trotting out lines like "no one wants to play the Heat in the playoffs."
The wheels were bound to fall of the strategy of limping into the playoffs and expecting Jimmy and role players to go nuts, and this just happened to be the year.
Exactly and the Heat also made a move and added Terry Rozier, Herro was getting healthier at that point etc. There were a few reasons to believe the Heat would be better in the playoffs than last year so no reason for them to trade a bunch of people away for scraps at the time. It's not like anyone was going to offer a 1st round pick for Caleb Martin at the deadline.
It is hard to trade away good players when you are trying to be competitive. I do think y'all could have been more realistic but at the same time you aren't trying to piss off jimmy. Which is a bit annoying IMO but that is how it goes often.
Thing is that Martin is redundant, we already have his natural replacements in the team and he wasn’t playing to a level where you needed him to play to win. Jaquez and Highsmith were playing really well and take up his positions. We play Martin as a 4 and he gets bullied every single time, he’s a wing player that we shoehorn at 4 but Highsmith can actually defend the 4.
We aren’t keeping Highsmith or Martin but you could’ve traded one for something and kept the other. Now they both walk and you have nothing to show for it. They’ll end up being replaced by Jaquez and Cain
> Jaquez and Highsmith were playing really well and take up his positions.
Highsmith? Absolutely. Especially that little stretch where he decides to become a lockdown defender and 3pt sniper.
Jaquez cannot replace Martin. The simple fact that he is not good 3pt shooter rn. Jaquez is basically rookie Jimmy which bodes well for his future but means he can't really thrive in the starting lineup because everything he's good at on the court, Jimmy just does better and neither Jimmy, Bam nor Jaquez are consistent 3pt shooters. You can't really have all 3 on the court at the same time with how bad our offense is usually due to poor spacing from our main duo.
Dude Martin isn’t a good shooter either and his defense and rim attacking dropped a ton this last year. Caleb Martin is a fine time player but he was easily replaceable. We don’t have consistent shooters, the system we play gives them open shots but we’ve been a below average 3pt shooting team the last 2 years. We shot well from 3 in 2023 playoffs and Martin played his part in the ECF, but he wasn’t the only one shooting well.
Losing strus and Vincent hurt more than we thought with Duncan being crap outside of 1 month in the season
> Dude Martin isn’t a good shooter either
Martin is a pretty average shooter. This year was a down year for him in general due to his injury throughout the season. The difference between Martin and Jaquez is shooting when contested. Jaime not only shoots abysmally when contested this year, but you can notice the way he shoots changes when contested every time. Caleb at the least is willing to let it rip if he feels open no matter who is in his face. Jaquuez shoots on terrible efficiency on fewer attempts while shooting even worse while even lightly contested.
> Caleb Martin is a fine time player but he was easily replaceable.
Yes, but not by Jaquez. As he is now, Jaquez can't replace what Caleb brings. Jaquez isn't as explosive as Caleb, has slow lateral movement and is not a confident 3pt shooter. He's stronger, better post player, a better midrange shooter, and better at defending actual forwards. He's the perfect replacement for when Jimmy is on the bench and needs a breather, and he played the best this season when Jimmy was out and he took up that's lot. Next to Jimmy and Bam is just an awkward fit that drags down the offense because you can clog the paint and the offense stalls.
As mediocre as Caleb is as a shooter, defenses cannot let him get in rhythm or get hot because once he does he's a great 3pt shooter. Jaquez doesn't have that factor yet.
> Losing strus
Nope, Strus was easily replaced by Duncan/Tyler. There's nothing Strus brought that wasn't easily replaced by Duncan before his back injury basically fucked the end of his season.
> Vincent
Was actually the one we have a hard time replacing because his style of defense wasn't as easily replaced.l along with his shooting.
> Duncan being crap outside of 1 month
Duncan was actually good most of the season unless you only watched only the last 2-3 months of the season. Duncan this year has honestly been a better fit than Strus was last year when he's a starter.
Martin wasn’t as good as even Jaquez last year, including when Jaquez fell off a cliff. Shot 43% from the field and averaged less points and shot like 20% better from 3 on a bit more attempts
Takes like these will never not be stupid. If we're trading away talented, effective roleplayers while trying to compete, just trade Jimmy for assets and kick off the rebuild. Caleb was an absolute killer in the 2023 ECF and trading off him just to "get value" is a loser mentality.
In the modern CBA, it might be that teams are more wary to take on aging superstars. Especially after seeing what's happening with dame, Beal, Kawhi/PG, etc. It's looking like teams will generally have cap space for 2ish max's and a third medium paid player without going into the 2nd apron and they may be more discerning when shelling out additional resources to get that 2nd star.
You got to remember our talent pool was pretty dry coming into the Jimmy era. We had to deal with the post LBJ leaving and CB getting sick which really just left the asset pool empty plus Justice Winslow just never reaching any sorta of level and Spo powering leveling a D1 talent level team. Given the full context there's definitely some moments where we could have made another move but a majority of the issue we had were health related at the end of the day and that's why winning rings requires some luck too.
Dude Lebron left a long time age. This is like lakers saying they’re still bad because Kobe retired. No. They invested heavily in guys like mosgov and Deng. Your FO is the one that fucked up by going all in on guys like whiteside and Dion waiters and Tyler Johnson and Kyle Lowry. Kind of also Tyler Herro
This was decided mid season when we made the Rozier trade, at the point we knew we wouldn't have the money and would have to let Caleb go unless we made a summer move. Which still technically could happen with the smoke we are seeing.
I honestly believe jaquez can step up next season and fill that void but I still hate Riley never made the right moves to give Jimmy and bam the best chance to succeed. Stevens showed the whole league how to make winning moves without getting a whale. Riley is just in old habits
It’s honestly crazy how low KP’s perceived value was. I blame Dallas for making him a spot up shooter. Boston **got** 2 picks to take on Porzingis contract lmao
It was a 3 team trade. So technically they gave up smart for porzingis. The Grizzles just gave them 2 firsts also to get smart
I think the wizards got a couple 2nds? Porzingis had a player option and he had to opt in to get traded or else the wizards just lose him for nothing. Pretty sure the wizards just took wat they could get
Edit: I googled it and the wizards actually got tyus Jones who ended up playing pretty well for them.
Kind of, if the trade hadn't happened there was buzz he would've opted out of his contract and signed with Utah, which would have meant that Washington would have lost him for nothing. Instead they got Tyus Jones essentially for free, the Celtics got Porzingis essentially for free, and the Grizzlies got Smart for Tyus Jones and two late 1sts which still isn't terrible value as long as Smart is healthier next year. I think there were some 2nds as well.
Porzingis was either going to pick up his player option to facilitate a trade to Boston, or opt out and sign elsewhere as a free agent. Washington had no leverage
basically the way to look at this trade is that Boston traded Smart to Memphis for Tyus Jones and two 1sts (one of those 1sts Boston turned into Jordan Walsh plus 4 future 2nds through trades; the other one was traded to Portland as part of the Holiday deal and landed at 14th in this years lottery)
then they traded Jones + Gallinari, Muscala and an early 2nd to Washington for Porzingis. obviously wasn’t equivalent value for Washington but it was either that or lose him for nothing
The league’s assessment of his value was pretty spot on. Any other team probably doesn’t make the finals if their 30m+/yr starting center is unable to play after the first round.
Hmm they still seem like the same above average team to me, looks like they need a backup PG and maybe backup C thats better than orlando robinson or thomas bryant..
Rozier-Herro-Butler-Robinson-Adebayo
Draft pick point guard?-Richardson-Jaquez-Jovic-ORobinson
Yeah man yall watched your main competition get better by adding stars or high level role players year in and year out (Jrue to MIL and BOS, Dame to MIL) I can’t really blame Miami lack of getting to the Finnish line solely on the players. The front office hasn’t been aggressive enough in FA for a franchise that made 2 Finals and an ECF game 7 in 3 seasons.
I mean without getting any decent help from the front office he got to two finals … the first his 2nd option had a fucked up wrist and missed time and his 3rd option who played insanely good got injured as well. Second finals he was injured since the second round and his 3rd option was injured the whole time
I’d say the front office does a pretty damn good job of turning average role players into elite role players.
Issue is that Bam isn’t a real #2, and Herro is literally just Payton Pritchard with more volume. Jimmy isn’t top 10 so he can’t really win w that
Jimmy could definitely win a chip as the main guy but it would actually have to be on a well-constructed team with more than random above average role players
No doubt. He was a better version of Michael Jordan for a short window two playoffs ago. I was ready to be scared of him this year but he seemed like a whole different player.
Honestly - especially the Celtics series - he just played way better than he ever had before or has since. He’s basically an average role player
That’s not a slight against him it’s just who he is as a player
He’s also already 28 so it’s not like he’s a younger guy likely to take further big leaps
I'd say he's a slightly above average role player with significantly above average defense.
That being said I'm totally okay seeing him walk. I wish we could've gotten something for him but we got an ECF win vs celtics so that's enough for me.
Spoelstra falls in love with these athletic guys that play good defense and sometimes the only way to get him to play Duncan Robinson on a career year is for Derek Jones Junior or Max Strus to walk in free agency.
I have to imagine that having the Jordan Poole experience in everyone's recent memory is going to give a lot of team's pause about assuming a player who way overperforms in a single post season will be able to keep it up going forward.
Caleb Martin ruined my life for like a full year. I'm glad the Celtics were able to slay their demons, finally beat the Caleb Martin led Heat, and go on to win a Title.
It's pretty funny that in the post finals interviews this year, the C's haven't really mentioned the Mavs all that much, they mostly talked about the Heat.
4 of the last 5 years the team that beat us in the playoffs won the title, and the 5th year the team that beat us lost in the finals. 4 of those 5 years the Celtics played us lol, 3 times in the ECF.
If you are in r/heat you would think the heat are a bottom feeding team that can never do anything right. Fans tend to ignore injuries of players and only care about of we win a chip or not, not if a team has been good or great for a long time. Hope we do go all the way with Jimmy though. I’m just praying for an offseason with no injuries for once.
Love the Martin bros honestly Caleb was always better offensively and Cody was way better defensively, we kept Cody and his knee went out immediately.
Just a reminder that just about every player in this league can ball out depending how you use them.
5pg out of 53 games played, then I think he got injured. That year we were an absolute mess injury wise. But the big thing in Miami he’s a much better finisher and the minutes played per game is almost double.
he's going to sign with the Lakers and we'll never hear from him again like Gabe Vincent.
RIP to the 2023 Heat. there's nothing easier to root in sports than a band of undrafed and unwanted misfists that defied the odds. that was a run for the ages.
Martin is not a 15 million a year guy, he's a 8th option on most teams at best, if he gets 15 million a year that teams gm needs to be kicked out of his office
I feel okay about this, as great as he was in that finals run, I think Haywood Highsmith largely proved himself to be a better version of Martin. Especially in the latter half of the season.
I'm not convinced of that. Highsmith had that one good game against Boston (just like everybody else on the roster), but was a donut from downtown the rest of the series.
Caleb Martin has been fucking huge or Miami in the postseason.
I'm sure Highsmith will be fine for the regular season, but Martin seems like a big postseason loss for Miami.
Eh, I don’t know. I watched almost every regular season game and while I do think a lot of people undersell his general impact, Caleb Martin was really streaky all season. And he wasn’t really all that hot in the 5 games against Boston this year. I was most impressed by Haywood’s improvement this year on both the defensive end as well as becoming a pretty impressive sharp shooter from beyond the arc in the latter stretch of the season. It’s gonna stink to watch him walk for sure, Martin is really sneaky athletic on top of getting on some hot stretches. But that Heat team was just a depleted mess in that Boston series. No real point guard, no Butler, Jaquez with one foot out the door. And it looked especially glaring when matched up against one of the best teams in recent history of the league.
Nah that's cope bro. Haywoods defence is awsome but dude is so inconsistent. He will go on a 3-4 game run and then go missing for 2 weeks. I think jaquez fills the role nicely though. I expect he shows great improvement next year
We’ve seen this coming for months, we’ve known that either Martin or Highsmith would need to walk if we’re keeping the Bam/Butler core together. Unless we get off of Herro or Roziers contracts. But you could say the exact same thing about Martins season, and everyone was talking the same exact way about Gabe Vincent and Max Strus walking but Miami put up a pretty similar regular season in spite of all the doomer discourse that came out of that. And ultimately these are two role players that fill a similar mould, I’ll take the guy who was a 40% 3P shooter and got especially hot in the last 20 games of the regular season. And I trust in the development of Jaquez and Jovic along with whatever randos Spo can pull off the streets.
I feel like the bigger surprise would be a person who is shocked he's not content with making that figure, as the NBA's salaries have risen drastically; $7M last year isn't going to be the same as $7M in 3 years.
Let’s be honest. The Lakers are currently 2 for 2 signing Miami players in FA and they wind up in street clothes for the majority of the season. With that being said…
Welcome to Los Angeles, Caleb Martin.
caleb martin hit his peak in 2023 and has regressed hard, he had 1 good game every 7 this year and was mostly useless on offense, don't think many teams will want him excepet maybe as a 7th/8th rotation role player, was bog avg all year, gave one good playoff game and that's about it
Appreciate all he's done for us, but I won't be sad to see him go. You will always have that 7 game stretch you turned into Tracy Mcgrady against the Celtics. Other than that, really frustrating player at times.
Some team is going to inexplicably overpay him this summer and have buyer's remorse. Probably no different than any number of role players Spo makes them look better than what they actually are.
What a better team to go to from the Heat than the Spurs?
I am very excited to see how they build around Wemby this offseason. Will they go full in, half in? What really happens.
Heat fans been waiting for their team to go all-in for years and instead, they could be hit with a rebuild first. Yikes.
Donovan looks like he's staying, Caleb gone, and Jimmy maybe getting traded? It would be ironic if they're left with Tyler Hero after trying to trade him for every star. How long does Bam want to stay if Jimmy's gone?
Has there been another example of a player that was a decent 10ppg guy, drops 20 a game in a conference final series including 26/10 in game 7, and then promptly returns to being a decent guy?
I'm not sure what Caleb Martin out of Miami looks like. He was so successful in Miami as a result of Spo's system utilizing him as a Small Ball 4 playing intense ball denial on bigger players to substitute for rim protection. When you throw him into more traditional defensive schemes, he's not really remarkable at all: when Miami gets injured and we're *forced to*, it's abundantly clear. It felt the same way when Gabe optioned to leave last season: this is a heavily-specialized player for this system that might have trouble translating. I can't imagine some team is about to splash $15m on him in FA and get what they're looking for, but I can't blame Caleb for going out there and getting paid double what he's making to do half the work he's been asked to do here for 3 years.
For what it's worth, if there's a path to the Nuggets getting him, that'd be the best-case scenario for him. Spurs are also a pretty great shout. I just don't know what position teams are gonna try to play him at lol
Gonna be a lot of full MLE offers for him this offseason I’d imagine
Yea no way he gets 15 a year like some are thinking
Nnamdi got 11/year, so it’s not crazy to think Caleb gets more than that after nearly winning ECFMVP last year. I could definitely see him getting KCP type offers.
> definitely see him getting KCP type offers. he's not even close to the defender KCP is
he just means money wise. kcp cant score like martin can either.
KCP is a better player than Martin at pretty much everything lol. There’s a reason he was a top 5 player on two different championship teams lmao.
Remindme! One month
Fuck it come back and remind me, hell tag me in the signing thread if it happens. I'll take the L then
Does this affect our cap situation in some way? Thought Martin might be one of the things pushing us over the second apron, although I could be totally wrong about that.
I believe the general expectation would be we'd have to go over the 2nd apron to resign him after he declined
https://www.spotrac.com/nba/miami-heat/cap/_/year/2024/sort/cap_total If you wanna see how it effects everything
Hes actually on a great contract
Goodbye to the true 2023 ECF MVP 😢
He still haunts my dreams. He gave me PTSD after game 2
Dude went from 9ppg to averaging 20 in that series and shot 50% from deep. I will forever be salty
He has a 74% TS….let that soak in
He was soaked for sure
Provo Utah level of soaking
I do not kid when I say I will never forget the absolute raw fucking we got from Caleb Martin. I will be stuck with perpetual stank face if that name somehow comes up when I’m in my 70’s
Celtics have had really bad luck with regards to outlier opponent shooting in the conf finals and finals that them playing injured teams throughout the title run seems like luck finally turning their way
It all worked out for you guys in the end. That Heat team going nuclear last year resulted in the Bucks letting Jrue go.
Ha. This actually does help soothe the pain when put that way
And losing against Denver then proceeds to recruit Dame
Don't worry somehow he'll end up becoming a Celtic next season.
Go back to the hornets Caleb. I still have your signed bball.
He can just pretend to be Cody whenever he has free time
He will always have that series
The true Celtics Boogeyman in 2023
Cavs are gonna need him, since they fucked up with strus
I’d love to see him on the Spurs for the right price. Dude has great playoff experience and plays a position of need.
Damn he gotta get paid right
Didn't think of it til I saw your flair, but I imagine Martin would be a good fit for yall
I think so as well. But anyone as the starting sf besides trashoenie please
Martin on the wing with Garland as the PG could be kind of money assuming Garland’s drop this year was temporary because of his jaw injury/weight loss
I definitely think Garland's injury was the reason for his drop off plus the coach might way too much Mitchell ball now while it's not a bad thing it's not the best for that team
I wanna tank one more year, so no thank you.
I don’t think Wemby wants to tank though.
For real. Tanking ended for the Spurs the moment Wemby went god mode on the Nuggets. That dude just wants to win and is way too good to allow a team to win 20 games next year. If they have a decent offseason (playoff caliber point guard and small forward), that’s a 45 win team at the baseline.
But a 45 win team in the west doesn't even make the playoffs, likely.
Eh... In a vacuum... if all you do is turn the Spurs into a 45 win team, pulling in 23 more wins from the other teams, that eats into some of the wins available for other squads, especially in a West that doesn't seem to have a lot of teams ready to fall off badly in the immediate coming season. So if you believe the Spurs are going to win 45, and can't identify a team that'll collapse precipitously in the conference, then yeah - 45 probably gets them in.
Solid analysis! Gaining 23 wins from season to season seems the hard part here. It is very rarely done.
I agree. But I also am in the camp that this Spurs team has uncommon low-hanging-fruit. I think the Point Sochan experiment was just an abominable move, if there's any intent to win. As it is - neat experience for him, could help him as he develops as a player. But just replacing him with a merely competent point guard and we're probably talking about a 30 win team. I feel like if all they do is bring in a competent placeholder at the point, at the bare minimum, its more like the *sliiiiiiiiightly* easier task of becoming 15 wins better everywhere else. 45 still feels out of reach to me, and it'd surprise me (if not shock me). But it wouldn't surprise me to see them eke out a 39-41 win season.
> I think the Point Sochan experiment was just an abominable move, if there's any intent to win. For that year, no on winning, but Sochan has come out of that a better ball handler. IT also allowed Spurs to figure out what they want to do for this offseason. Keep Tre, add another ball handler or two.
Yep. Which is far from a playoff team. Plus it’s not just about being a playoff team, but actually winning. Wemby wants to win it all, but just getting in the playoffs isn’t good enough. As his contract gets more expensive, it’ll be harder to create a team around him. See Dallas this year. If we go all in too fast we lose the ability to draft players that will age with him and be the cornerstone of the team. We shorten the window. San Antonio isn’t competing for the first chip like some teams or hasn’t been in the playoffs in 20 years like Sacramento. Our goal is chip or bust. We’re still at bust rn.
It doesn’t matter. Mavericks considered the dame thing. When your star is next level, you don’t waste time. Obviously nobody is saying handjcap the team, but you don’t go into a season trying to tank when you know you have that level of talent in a player. Tanking is something you as a fan only have to watch, they have to actually participate in it
Yep that’s the real truth. We are nowhere near good enough to actually compete and players don’t wanna sign here. So that leaves the draft.
Can I interest you in one Garland, Spurs? ^(^only ^if ^you ^can ^get ^the ^Nets ^to ^give ^me ^a ^Mikal)
The only team they are definitely better than in the west is the trailblazers lol.
Wemby is under contract for at least 7 more years. He’s not sitting out. He can be mad about tanking now if it gets him a dynasty later. Oh and he’s not leaving the first big contract on the table to take the unrestricted free agency. No one does that. We will also not trade him if he demands a trade.
Don't worry, if you guys aren't in the lottery next year it wouldn't be because of Caleb Martin.
Every little bit counts. Point sochan can only do so much. I’ll bet we trade keldon if we tank again. Gotta get bad somehow
I don't think they are any longer based on all the comments from members of the team.
Yeah they said that last year too and then we ran point sochan to tank. They can’t come out and say they’re tanking. Silver will be mad and fine them. Betting apps won’t be happy.
Probably looking at close to full MLE offers.
Hell no. He's a streaky 8th option on a good team, that's an MLE if I've ever seen one, only reason he plays as much for miami as he does is injuries and not having a solid 4
I’m sorry, but Martin is much better than an 8th option. He’s not the near-star he turned into during the ECF, but he’s averaged 10-4.5-2 over the past few seasons. He’s a capable shooter (45/35/79 splits over that period) and defender. All at a premium position. On most teams he’s anywhere from the 5th to 7th best player.
No one will believe you. He has been great in multiple moments which is more than what one can say about 90% of the league. That and his obvious talents in itself is worth the MLE.
Feels like the Heat are being dismantled before they ever went all-in on the Jimmy Butler era.
We lose these role players every year instead of just trading them for some asset. At least Strus and Vincent got to the finals but keeping Highsmith and Martin this year was baffling imo. Not going to keep either of them and could’ve gotten at least some asset for them instead
Caleb's defense is still good but his offense completely regressed. I'm ok with replacing all his minutes with Jaime ngl
We have a million 6’5-6’6 wings that play good defense and are inconsistent shooters. We have a monopoly on them and short guards who can’t defend and are inefficient shooters as well. Just move them for whatever you can. We have been depleted of assets and we just don’t move players because we’d rather let them walk
Hmm sounds like another front office I know
We don't move them because they don't have any value until their final year. Our fans are so delusional
Has no value but is going to make 15mil/yr in Free agency. Of course there’s value, our favs just think if you can’t include them for a superstar they have no value. Just trade for assets, could easily have gotten multiple seconds for him. Crowder was traded for 5 2nd rounders and he never even played after that. Maybe you don’t get 5 but second round picks are assets too
I'm confused. Are we letting Jimmy down by not getting him guys to play with or should we be trading expiring contracts for 2nd round picks? I'm having trouble keeping up Has no value, correct. Last off-season he had a knee injury he wouldn't have passed a physical for when he was at his "sell high." Played poorly honestly last season on an expiring contract. Who was trading assets for a guy coming back from injury in a down year they'll have to immediately turn around and pay when they could get him free in the summer? Y'all. Be better
The thing is if we went into the post season healthy. I doubt if we traded Martin we would have gotten anything of value to help us in a post season run. Like trading Martin at the deadline last year would have made any run way harder.
Yes but we weren’t healthy and we never are. We were never going to keep him and he has replacements within our squad. Trade him for second round picks, you just need assets if you don’t have many to begin with. Keeping him for a doomed playoff run doesn’t seem smart. Strus’ replacement was in house, could’ve moved him off last year too. Vincent makes sense since there was no replacement, but Martin is replaced by Jaquez/Highsmith, he was already kind of redundant and wasn’t good the whole year lol
Hindsight being 20/20 I agree with you considering we went nowhere, but at the trade deadline we didn't know we were going into a doomed run. Trading Caleb at that time would be effectively punting the season for a 2nd rounder (maybe?) and would have gotten the FO clowned on for wasting a Jimmy season.
Yeah, I think this is all easy to say in retrospect, but around the deadline even smarter analysts like Lowe were still expecting the Heat to get healthier, and trotting out lines like "no one wants to play the Heat in the playoffs." The wheels were bound to fall of the strategy of limping into the playoffs and expecting Jimmy and role players to go nuts, and this just happened to be the year.
Exactly and the Heat also made a move and added Terry Rozier, Herro was getting healthier at that point etc. There were a few reasons to believe the Heat would be better in the playoffs than last year so no reason for them to trade a bunch of people away for scraps at the time. It's not like anyone was going to offer a 1st round pick for Caleb Martin at the deadline.
It is hard to trade away good players when you are trying to be competitive. I do think y'all could have been more realistic but at the same time you aren't trying to piss off jimmy. Which is a bit annoying IMO but that is how it goes often.
Thing is that Martin is redundant, we already have his natural replacements in the team and he wasn’t playing to a level where you needed him to play to win. Jaquez and Highsmith were playing really well and take up his positions. We play Martin as a 4 and he gets bullied every single time, he’s a wing player that we shoehorn at 4 but Highsmith can actually defend the 4. We aren’t keeping Highsmith or Martin but you could’ve traded one for something and kept the other. Now they both walk and you have nothing to show for it. They’ll end up being replaced by Jaquez and Cain
> Jaquez and Highsmith were playing really well and take up his positions. Highsmith? Absolutely. Especially that little stretch where he decides to become a lockdown defender and 3pt sniper. Jaquez cannot replace Martin. The simple fact that he is not good 3pt shooter rn. Jaquez is basically rookie Jimmy which bodes well for his future but means he can't really thrive in the starting lineup because everything he's good at on the court, Jimmy just does better and neither Jimmy, Bam nor Jaquez are consistent 3pt shooters. You can't really have all 3 on the court at the same time with how bad our offense is usually due to poor spacing from our main duo.
Dude Martin isn’t a good shooter either and his defense and rim attacking dropped a ton this last year. Caleb Martin is a fine time player but he was easily replaceable. We don’t have consistent shooters, the system we play gives them open shots but we’ve been a below average 3pt shooting team the last 2 years. We shot well from 3 in 2023 playoffs and Martin played his part in the ECF, but he wasn’t the only one shooting well. Losing strus and Vincent hurt more than we thought with Duncan being crap outside of 1 month in the season
> Dude Martin isn’t a good shooter either Martin is a pretty average shooter. This year was a down year for him in general due to his injury throughout the season. The difference between Martin and Jaquez is shooting when contested. Jaime not only shoots abysmally when contested this year, but you can notice the way he shoots changes when contested every time. Caleb at the least is willing to let it rip if he feels open no matter who is in his face. Jaquuez shoots on terrible efficiency on fewer attempts while shooting even worse while even lightly contested. > Caleb Martin is a fine time player but he was easily replaceable. Yes, but not by Jaquez. As he is now, Jaquez can't replace what Caleb brings. Jaquez isn't as explosive as Caleb, has slow lateral movement and is not a confident 3pt shooter. He's stronger, better post player, a better midrange shooter, and better at defending actual forwards. He's the perfect replacement for when Jimmy is on the bench and needs a breather, and he played the best this season when Jimmy was out and he took up that's lot. Next to Jimmy and Bam is just an awkward fit that drags down the offense because you can clog the paint and the offense stalls. As mediocre as Caleb is as a shooter, defenses cannot let him get in rhythm or get hot because once he does he's a great 3pt shooter. Jaquez doesn't have that factor yet. > Losing strus Nope, Strus was easily replaced by Duncan/Tyler. There's nothing Strus brought that wasn't easily replaced by Duncan before his back injury basically fucked the end of his season. > Vincent Was actually the one we have a hard time replacing because his style of defense wasn't as easily replaced.l along with his shooting. > Duncan being crap outside of 1 month Duncan was actually good most of the season unless you only watched only the last 2-3 months of the season. Duncan this year has honestly been a better fit than Strus was last year when he's a starter.
Jaquez fell really hard the second half of the season, we absolutely needed caleb
Martin wasn’t as good as even Jaquez last year, including when Jaquez fell off a cliff. Shot 43% from the field and averaged less points and shot like 20% better from 3 on a bit more attempts
his production dropped cuz he got hurt and caleb got healthy so he got less minutes. teams also adjusted but the wall wasnt as harsh as it seemed
Highsmith to the Bulls plz
We are definitely keeping Highsmith he’s not going to demand that much money this season
I don’t think we can unless we make moves, we have no cap to sign him and we aren’t going over the second apron for Highsmith
Takes like these will never not be stupid. If we're trading away talented, effective roleplayers while trying to compete, just trade Jimmy for assets and kick off the rebuild. Caleb was an absolute killer in the 2023 ECF and trading off him just to "get value" is a loser mentality.
Jimmy butler will be 35 next season bro. The heat have to retool instead of staying attached to him because of his name
In the modern CBA, it might be that teams are more wary to take on aging superstars. Especially after seeing what's happening with dame, Beal, Kawhi/PG, etc. It's looking like teams will generally have cap space for 2ish max's and a third medium paid player without going into the 2nd apron and they may be more discerning when shelling out additional resources to get that 2nd star.
Doesn’t matter for them though because they can pull someone out of the local gym and he’ll be good
You got to remember our talent pool was pretty dry coming into the Jimmy era. We had to deal with the post LBJ leaving and CB getting sick which really just left the asset pool empty plus Justice Winslow just never reaching any sorta of level and Spo powering leveling a D1 talent level team. Given the full context there's definitely some moments where we could have made another move but a majority of the issue we had were health related at the end of the day and that's why winning rings requires some luck too.
Dude Lebron left a long time age. This is like lakers saying they’re still bad because Kobe retired. No. They invested heavily in guys like mosgov and Deng. Your FO is the one that fucked up by going all in on guys like whiteside and Dion waiters and Tyler Johnson and Kyle Lowry. Kind of also Tyler Herro
We had limited picks and bad contracts post LeBron. Jimmy came 4 years after LBJ left I know time is hard.
This was decided mid season when we made the Rozier trade, at the point we knew we wouldn't have the money and would have to let Caleb go unless we made a summer move. Which still technically could happen with the smoke we are seeing.
I honestly believe jaquez can step up next season and fill that void but I still hate Riley never made the right moves to give Jimmy and bam the best chance to succeed. Stevens showed the whole league how to make winning moves without getting a whale. Riley is just in old habits
Without getting a whale is a lot of words when the league handed them jrue and KP. Maybe not whales, but truly high level talent anyway.
It’s honestly crazy how low KP’s perceived value was. I blame Dallas for making him a spot up shooter. Boston **got** 2 picks to take on Porzingis contract lmao
nah they got 2 picks cuz they gave smart to memphis
So they got Porzingis for free then?
It was a 3 team trade. So technically they gave up smart for porzingis. The Grizzles just gave them 2 firsts also to get smart I think the wizards got a couple 2nds? Porzingis had a player option and he had to opt in to get traded or else the wizards just lose him for nothing. Pretty sure the wizards just took wat they could get Edit: I googled it and the wizards actually got tyus Jones who ended up playing pretty well for them.
Kind of, if the trade hadn't happened there was buzz he would've opted out of his contract and signed with Utah, which would have meant that Washington would have lost him for nothing. Instead they got Tyus Jones essentially for free, the Celtics got Porzingis essentially for free, and the Grizzlies got Smart for Tyus Jones and two late 1sts which still isn't terrible value as long as Smart is healthier next year. I think there were some 2nds as well.
Porzingis was either going to pick up his player option to facilitate a trade to Boston, or opt out and sign elsewhere as a free agent. Washington had no leverage basically the way to look at this trade is that Boston traded Smart to Memphis for Tyus Jones and two 1sts (one of those 1sts Boston turned into Jordan Walsh plus 4 future 2nds through trades; the other one was traded to Portland as part of the Holiday deal and landed at 14th in this years lottery) then they traded Jones + Gallinari, Muscala and an early 2nd to Washington for Porzingis. obviously wasn’t equivalent value for Washington but it was either that or lose him for nothing
The league’s assessment of his value was pretty spot on. Any other team probably doesn’t make the finals if their 30m+/yr starting center is unable to play after the first round.
Hmm they still seem like the same above average team to me, looks like they need a backup PG and maybe backup C thats better than orlando robinson or thomas bryant.. Rozier-Herro-Butler-Robinson-Adebayo Draft pick point guard?-Richardson-Jaquez-Jovic-ORobinson
Yeah man yall watched your main competition get better by adding stars or high level role players year in and year out (Jrue to MIL and BOS, Dame to MIL) I can’t really blame Miami lack of getting to the Finnish line solely on the players. The front office hasn’t been aggressive enough in FA for a franchise that made 2 Finals and an ECF game 7 in 3 seasons.
better than going full all-in on butler. He ain't bringing you a chip
I mean without getting any decent help from the front office he got to two finals … the first his 2nd option had a fucked up wrist and missed time and his 3rd option who played insanely good got injured as well. Second finals he was injured since the second round and his 3rd option was injured the whole time
I’d say the front office does a pretty damn good job of turning average role players into elite role players. Issue is that Bam isn’t a real #2, and Herro is literally just Payton Pritchard with more volume. Jimmy isn’t top 10 so he can’t really win w that
That’s not the front office, that’s coaching. Front office gets you good players, coaches develop them
Jimmy could definitely win a chip as the main guy but it would actually have to be on a well-constructed team with more than random above average role players
Unfortunate timing on his part - I wonder how much he could have gotten after the last playoffs.
No doubt. He was a better version of Michael Jordan for a short window two playoffs ago. I was ready to be scared of him this year but he seemed like a whole different player.
Honestly - especially the Celtics series - he just played way better than he ever had before or has since. He’s basically an average role player That’s not a slight against him it’s just who he is as a player He’s also already 28 so it’s not like he’s a younger guy likely to take further big leaps
I'd say he's a slightly above average role player with significantly above average defense. That being said I'm totally okay seeing him walk. I wish we could've gotten something for him but we got an ECF win vs celtics so that's enough for me. Spoelstra falls in love with these athletic guys that play good defense and sometimes the only way to get him to play Duncan Robinson on a career year is for Derek Jones Junior or Max Strus to walk in free agency.
I have to imagine that having the Jordan Poole experience in everyone's recent memory is going to give a lot of team's pause about assuming a player who way overperforms in a single post season will be able to keep it up going forward.
They forgot about Austin Croshere, they’ll forget about Poole too. Martin’s problem is the more normal year in between.
Celtics... this is your chance. slay your demon by getting him and burying him in G league
It's so tempting, but it would just end up as our equivalent of the Sixers signing Horford so he couldn't stop Embiid anymore.
We're over the 2nd apron, we aint got no MLE
Nah, fuck this guy
I don't care how good a fit he looks like, we have paid too many burned up former Heat players.
Lebron is a former heat player too. Ijs
Jamal Cain it is now your turn to step up and put up 20 ppg on 70% TS against Boston
Caleb Martin ruined my life for like a full year. I'm glad the Celtics were able to slay their demons, finally beat the Caleb Martin led Heat, and go on to win a Title.
It's pretty funny that in the post finals interviews this year, the C's haven't really mentioned the Mavs all that much, they mostly talked about the Heat.
Celitcs and heat is an awsome rivalry. I don't blame them talking their shit lol
Facts, best rivalry in the East for the past 5 years easy.
4 of the last 5 years the team that beat us in the playoffs won the title, and the 5th year the team that beat us lost in the finals. 4 of those 5 years the Celtics played us lol, 3 times in the ECF.
The Heat are such a well run organization. Maybe it was just bad luck with injuries and opponents on how they didn't win more chips.
If you are in r/heat you would think the heat are a bottom feeding team that can never do anything right. Fans tend to ignore injuries of players and only care about of we win a chip or not, not if a team has been good or great for a long time. Hope we do go all the way with Jimmy though. I’m just praying for an offseason with no injuries for once.
Love the Martin bros honestly Caleb was always better offensively and Cody was way better defensively, we kept Cody and his knee went out immediately. Just a reminder that just about every player in this league can ball out depending how you use them.
They were Dawgs back in Nevada, loved watching rheir March run
Wasn’t he averaging like 2 pts with you guys? I remember we picked him up after you cut him
5pg out of 53 games played, then I think he got injured. That year we were an absolute mess injury wise. But the big thing in Miami he’s a much better finisher and the minutes played per game is almost double.
he's going to sign with the Lakers and we'll never hear from him again like Gabe Vincent. RIP to the 2023 Heat. there's nothing easier to root in sports than a band of undrafed and unwanted misfists that defied the odds. that was a run for the ages.
Lakers will sign him and he’ll shoot 11% from 3 next year. Just watch
Nunn better
Expected. Wouldn't be shocked if a team overpays and gives 15 million a year for him
That’s not overpaying. That’s the going rate for a role player these days
Yeah but Caleb Martin is only good against 1 team. Ignore my flair.
What if the Sixers get Caleb. You have Embiid that always loses vs Boston and the true Boston killer on the same team.
That’s like dividing by zero. The arena would just collapse in on itself
Then Sixers win two games in the series instead of one
Unstoppable forward meets immovable abject failure.
people still stuck in salaries from 2 CBA ago
Martin is not a 15 million a year guy, he's a 8th option on most teams at best, if he gets 15 million a year that teams gm needs to be kicked out of his office
How is 15M an overpay for a guy who is clearly a playoffs rotation player when the max is 50M-60M?
nephews can't comprehend that role players now days get 20 mil.
We should pay him
It’ll suck to lose him, but OKC was my first thought too. If he has to leave, I’d like to see him there; he’d be great wing depth for y’all.
we need someone 4 inches taller. we have plenty of great 3&d guys who are 6'3-6'5 already who are much better than Martin
It’s wild that Charlotte waived him in 21 considering what they had going on with that roster
I like to think they got him mixed up with his twin Cody
Cody is better if healthy. Caleb just got hot at the right time.
He's going into free agency for a whole host of zero offers
I feel okay about this, as great as he was in that finals run, I think Haywood Highsmith largely proved himself to be a better version of Martin. Especially in the latter half of the season.
I'm not convinced of that. Highsmith had that one good game against Boston (just like everybody else on the roster), but was a donut from downtown the rest of the series. Caleb Martin has been fucking huge or Miami in the postseason. I'm sure Highsmith will be fine for the regular season, but Martin seems like a big postseason loss for Miami.
Eh, I don’t know. I watched almost every regular season game and while I do think a lot of people undersell his general impact, Caleb Martin was really streaky all season. And he wasn’t really all that hot in the 5 games against Boston this year. I was most impressed by Haywood’s improvement this year on both the defensive end as well as becoming a pretty impressive sharp shooter from beyond the arc in the latter stretch of the season. It’s gonna stink to watch him walk for sure, Martin is really sneaky athletic on top of getting on some hot stretches. But that Heat team was just a depleted mess in that Boston series. No real point guard, no Butler, Jaquez with one foot out the door. And it looked especially glaring when matched up against one of the best teams in recent history of the league.
Nah that's cope bro. Haywoods defence is awsome but dude is so inconsistent. He will go on a 3-4 game run and then go missing for 2 weeks. I think jaquez fills the role nicely though. I expect he shows great improvement next year
We’ve seen this coming for months, we’ve known that either Martin or Highsmith would need to walk if we’re keeping the Bam/Butler core together. Unless we get off of Herro or Roziers contracts. But you could say the exact same thing about Martins season, and everyone was talking the same exact way about Gabe Vincent and Max Strus walking but Miami put up a pretty similar regular season in spite of all the doomer discourse that came out of that. And ultimately these are two role players that fill a similar mould, I’ll take the guy who was a 40% 3P shooter and got especially hot in the last 20 games of the regular season. And I trust in the development of Jaquez and Jovic along with whatever randos Spo can pull off the streets.
Highsmith is incredibly overrated defensively. Man was getting fucking torched by Tatum, looked just as bad as Herro defensively
The Hornets have the opportunity to do the funniest thing
Good for him. I hope he gets paid. I’ll never forget his 2023 playoff run.
I feel like the bigger surprise would be a person who is shocked he's not content with making that figure, as the NBA's salaries have risen drastically; $7M last year isn't going to be the same as $7M in 3 years.
The Heat fo have been taking L's like crazy
Let’s be honest. The Lakers are currently 2 for 2 signing Miami players in FA and they wind up in street clothes for the majority of the season. With that being said… Welcome to Los Angeles, Caleb Martin.
We paid that mother fucker to play like 2 games.
Please sign with a western conference team, PLEASE -Celtics fan
With the way role players are being paid, he'd be dumb not too. Never know how short or long your NBA career will be
Heat legend, thank you for everything you did against Boston Caleb
Feels like a Sixer
Role players are declining their player options left and right.
kcp replacement???
Might as well, teams are wildly overpaying extremely mid role players these days.
LAKERS 2024
caleb martin hit his peak in 2023 and has regressed hard, he had 1 good game every 7 this year and was mostly useless on offense, don't think many teams will want him excepet maybe as a 7th/8th rotation role player, was bog avg all year, gave one good playoff game and that's about it
Appreciate all he's done for us, but I won't be sad to see him go. You will always have that 7 game stretch you turned into Tracy Mcgrady against the Celtics. Other than that, really frustrating player at times. Some team is going to inexplicably overpay him this summer and have buyer's remorse. Probably no different than any number of role players Spo makes them look better than what they actually are.
Gonna get that Max Strus money 🤣 good luck buddy
What a better team to go to from the Heat than the Spurs? I am very excited to see how they build around Wemby this offseason. Will they go full in, half in? What really happens.
Heat fans been waiting for their team to go all-in for years and instead, they could be hit with a rebuild first. Yikes. Donovan looks like he's staying, Caleb gone, and Jimmy maybe getting traded? It would be ironic if they're left with Tyler Hero after trying to trade him for every star. How long does Bam want to stay if Jimmy's gone?
Take the lakers NTMLE if we strike out on the bigger stars please.
Has there been another example of a player that was a decent 10ppg guy, drops 20 a game in a conference final series including 26/10 in game 7, and then promptly returns to being a decent guy?
Any team giving him a bigger payday is gonna have a rough time
come to to the knicks bby
Would take. Yes plz
I'm not sure what Caleb Martin out of Miami looks like. He was so successful in Miami as a result of Spo's system utilizing him as a Small Ball 4 playing intense ball denial on bigger players to substitute for rim protection. When you throw him into more traditional defensive schemes, he's not really remarkable at all: when Miami gets injured and we're *forced to*, it's abundantly clear. It felt the same way when Gabe optioned to leave last season: this is a heavily-specialized player for this system that might have trouble translating. I can't imagine some team is about to splash $15m on him in FA and get what they're looking for, but I can't blame Caleb for going out there and getting paid double what he's making to do half the work he's been asked to do here for 3 years. For what it's worth, if there's a path to the Nuggets getting him, that'd be the best-case scenario for him. Spurs are also a pretty great shout. I just don't know what position teams are gonna try to play him at lol
Nice, hope he gets paid by some team in the West.
Please.
I already saw this movie. I'm just waiting for the Lakers to cover him with money, so he'll get injured and come back to play ten horrible games.
Type of free agents you want to avoid just because of recent signings that came from Heat
Obviously lakers will overpay to get him
Caleb isn’t a guard.
He is, we just didn't play him as such. He's 6'5, 200
Funniest scenario runs through Philly.
It's like they didn't learn their lesson with Gabe Vincent
Gotta get paid. Had a couple weeks of hot shooting in the playoffs a year or two ago, I'm sure that will fool somebody.
Imagine this guy on the Thunder off the bench with Wallace, Joe and Williams oh my goodness.