The Miami Heat may be looking to trade with a once-unfathomable team.
Ian Begley of SportsNet New York reported this week that the Heat have spoken with the New York Knicks about a potential trade for Cam Reddish.
“I would assume the Knicks are picking up the phone on calls that they get,” Begley told Bleacher Report’s Jake Fischer, per SI. “I do know that Miami is among the teams that has spoken to the Knicks about Reddish specifically.”
Reddish, 22, is a long wing player who could help the Heat defensively as they look to compensate for the loss of P.J. Tucker in free agency. But the more interesting aspect of this rumor is the possibility of the Knicks and Heat actually linking up on a trade.
The two Eastern Conference teams had arguably the NBA’s fiercest rivalry in the 1990s, owed to several heated playoff battles and the lingering bad blood over Pat Riley’s defection from the Knicks to the Heat. Since then, the two have virtually never traded with each other. In fact, their last transaction came when the Knicks got $1 million and a future first-rounder (that they turned into Walter McCarty) from the Heat as compensation for Riley’s departure (and to convince the Knicks to drop tampering charges).
Granted, the Knicks-Heat rivalry has cooled considerably since they have met just once in the playoffs over the last two decades (in 2012). But Riley is still in charge of Miami, and it would be a shock to see him ever trading with his former team, especially since Riley does not too seem fond of one current Knicks figure.
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