Pat Riley lacks patience. In the NBA, that hardly is a character flaw.
So draft picks have been dealt as if launched from T-shirt cannons. Development projects passed along to be cultivated elsewhere. Youthful promise often sacrificed in the name of proven productivity.
Over the past 27 months, that has proven the case at least in triplicate with the Heat president. Josh Richardson was dispatched to the Philadelphia 76ers for Jimmy Butler in the 2019 offseason, Justise Winslow to the Memphis Grizzlies at the 2020 NBA trading deadline for a two-year rental of Andre Iguodala, Precious Achiuwa sent the Toronto Raptors in August as part of a package for Kyle Lowry.
The first two of those moves contributed to the Heat’s run to the 2020 NBA Finals. The latest of those moves was made in the hope of revisiting such success.
But with Butler now 32, Lowry 35 and Iguodala at 37 having moved on for a reunion run with the Golden State Warriors, there remains ample time for Richardson (28), Winslow (25) and Achiuwa (22) to rewrite their stories. And that always is the risk for a franchise that once discarded the 22-year-old promise of Patrick Beverley in 2010 training camp in favor of the 32-year-old over-the-hill remnants of what was left of Eddie House’s final NBA season.
For Richardson, his offseason trade from the Dallas Mavericks to the Boston Celtics may well represent his final chance to recapture what made him such an intriguing Heat 2015 second-round selection. Since his move to Philadelphia in the Butler deal, the two-way spark offered with the Heat has gone AWOL.
“I think last year, mentally I just kind of got on a roller coaster,” Richardson told The Athletic during Celtics camp. “It’s tough. It’s a long season and there’s a lot of outside factors these last few years that have been going on, and then everybody has their own personal stuff. Going forward, I just gotta stay confident and try to be more consistent with my shots. But so far, I think I’ve been doing it.”
For Richardson, part of it last season was dealing with a bout of COVID-19 and also an absence due to contact tracing. There also was the perception of his teams coming out on the losing ends of his previous two trades, with the Heat getting Butler and then the 76ers getting Seth Curry. This time, he was offloaded by the Mavericks essentially in a salary dump.
With Winslow, it is as if he has disappeared from view since being dealt by the Heat, to the point that the Grizzlies allowed him to depart as a free agent this offseason rather than paying him the $13 million option on the final year of the three-year extension signed with the Heat. Instead, he had to settle for $8 million over two years with the Los Angeles Clippers.
For now, the goal is to see if Winslow’s versatility remains viable in the absence of offensive consistency, as questions continue about an injury pattern that dates to his Heat tenure.
“You look at Justise in terms of where his curve was going prior to the hip injury,” Clippers President Lawrence Frank told The Athletic. “He’s a multi-positional player. We think he’s a high-level defender. With Miami, he had a great stretch at playing point guard. And he’s another guy that brings positional versatility, another downhill attacker and another playmaker.”
Said Winslow, “I feel that my game is coming back and I’m feeling good about that.”
Then there is Achiuwa, the 2020 Heat first-round pick out of Memphis who found himself on a team limited with patience, signing 31-year-old Dewayne Dedmon to replace him in last season’s rotation and then moving him for Lowry.
With the Raptors, there appears to be a far more nurturing culture, albeit one of necessity after the loss of Lowry, Kawhi Leonard and Serge Ibaka in recent seasons.
“I think there’s not a whole lot he can’t do,” Raptors coach Nick Nurse said. “We play some one-on-one, we have some one-on-one tournaments and he’s winning those frequently.
“It’s how do we clean up his game? How do we give him a few decisions to make and get to all of that stuff later, what’s going to fit, and help him be most successful right now?”
The NBA is replete with stories of second, third and fourth chances, which yet could bode well for Achiuwa, Winslow and Richardson. In each case, it could turn into a case of not recognizing what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone.
Or, as has largely been the Riley refrain, you can live in the moment, attempt to re-create how the trades of Richardson and Winslow had the Heat bubbling over in the 2020 playoffs at Disney World, perhaps next to produce a champagne moment with Lowry.
