Heat’s perfect Kawhi Leonard trade offer to Clippers

It has to be said that there is no way the Heat would want to shake their team up at the moment — especially not for an aging, injury-prone star like Leonard. The vibes are immaculate in South Beach right now, and Leonard, as talented and as much of a playoff riser as he may be, would also change the dynamic of that locker room so much.

It’s no secret that the Clippers have been giving Leonard special treatment for so long, caving in to his demands as part of their agreement when he joined the team back in July 2019. The Clippers, as far as they’re concerned, see Leonard as their franchise cornerstone, for better or for worse.

In Miami, there is no way Leonard will be getting such treatment — not under head coach Erik Spoelstra and Pat Riley’s watchful eyes. With Leonard getting used to so much of that special treatment in LA, he may be shocked by the difference if the Heat decide to acquire him. For those reasons alone, one would think that Miami won’t be interested in him in the first place — not when the team is thriving under a more egalitarian offense.

This exercise is just to point out what kind of package the Heat could put together that would reasonably entice the Clippers in a world where there are no off-court concerns surrounding Leonard.

Kel’el Ware is going to be the starting point of any trade talks between the two teams. Ware is the Heat’s best young prospect, and he is an intimidating presence around the basket. His 7’5″ wingspan is mind-bogglingly difficult to score on, and this allows him to be a dominant force on the glass and around the basket.

But as long as Bam Adebayo is on the Heat, which he would be for a long time considering how the team views him as their cornerstone and a lifer in an ideal world, Ware will be relegated to backup duties. That is a luxury for Miami right now, but eventually, Ware is going to have to get paid — can the Heat stomach paying him a huge extension to be the backup to Adebayo when Bam is healthy?

Ware has started the past four games off the bench, and his results have been mixed. He was dominant on Wednesday, recording 22 points and 10 boards in their 118-108 loss to the Dallas Mavericks, but his ceiling of production is capped so long as Adebayo is healthy, which Miami would want every single night.

Spoelstra has experimented with lineups involving Ware and Adebayo sharing the floor, but he has justifiably stayed away from pairing those two for extended stretches. According to PBP Stats, the Heat have posted a net rating of -4.46 in the 103 minutes that Adebayo and Ware have shared the court this year. That is horrible and makes it likely for Spoelstra to keep splitting their minutes as much as possible.

With that, perhaps the Heat eventually decide that packaging the talented center who’s capped as the backup to Adebayo in a trade for a bigger star would be the best use of resources. And the Clippers will want Ware — especially if they’re also trading Zubac away to keep on adding to their rebuild.

But Ware was untouchable in trade talks for Durant, so this is nothing but a pipe dream for the Clippers as there is no way Leonard is going to be the star that changes Miami’s stance on trading their talented young center.

Andrew Wiggins is the Heat’s most expendable player in the starting lineup if Leonard were to arrive, and his salary makes a trade that much easier to pull off. He also gives the Clippers a starting small forward on a reasonable salary moving forward, at least allowing them to remain semi-competitive so that they don’t at least convey their unprotected pick to the Thunder without much of a fight.

Terry Rozier may have played his last game in the NBA, but he’ll simply be included in this trade for salary-matching purposes.

As for the first-round draft picks, the Clippers would want to replenish their depleted chest of draft assets, so any Leonard trade would have to involve them. As for the Heat, they know the cost of doing business. And if they truly believe that acquiring Leonard, a two-time NBA Finals MVP, can get them over the hump, then two first-rounders is a perfectly acceptable price to pay.