Hollinger is covering his ass---Odom must be coming home to Pappy.
Updated: July 24, 2009, 1:05 PM ET
Would Boozer and Odom help Heat?
Despite having no cap space, pushing up against the luxury tax and seemingly wanting to save most of their dough for next summer's free-agent run, the Miami Heat, against all odds, have become one of the offseason's most interesting teams.
Two players in particular have been linked to the Heat: Utah's
Carlos Boozer and the Lakers'
Lamar Odom. It's possible the Heat could add both of them, if they can use their full midlevel exception to get Odom and then trade some of their expiring contracts for Boozer.
It's also possible they could get neither of them, but what's the fun in that? This is the offseason. Let's dare to dream.
The question then becomes how much better Boozer and/or Odom would make the Heat.
Our initial instinct is to think getting one or both would help quite a bit. The Heat are basically just
Dwyane Wade and a bunch of filler, right? Adding another star would theoretically move them several notches up the ladder. Adding two? That could put them in the East's upper crust.
Subject those assumptions to some deeper scrutiny, however, and the conclusion is a little different.
An incoming player affects a team by replacing another player. In Miami's case, the two weakest starting positions this past season were small forward and point guard. So, upgrades at those two positions would generate the greatest impact, because the Heat would be replacing weak players with strong ones.
Conversely, upgrading the frontcourt wouldn't help as much, because the Heat already were pretty decent there. And they project to be a lot better this coming season, at power forward in particular.
This past season, as a rookie,
Michael Beasley averaged 22.4 points per 40 minutes. He played only 24 minutes a game, which limited his per-game averages, but he put up a solid 17.28 player efficiency rating in his first pro season.
That's exactly the same PER Boozer recorded. And since neither of these guys will be on the court for his defense, measuring their statistical impact is an appropriate way to compare them.
When we do that using this past season's numbers, we find that upgrading from Beasley to Boozer has no impact whatsoever. None. Zero. One might argue that Boozer likely would play better this coming season given his previous stats; I would answer that Beasley, who will start the season at just 20 years old, is highly likely to improve on his Year 1 numbers. Additionally, he's far more likely than Boozer to participate in most or all of the 82-game schedule.
As for Odom, he probably could make a bigger impact on D than Beasley, but his 16.60 PER in 2008-09 was worse than Beasley's, and since he turns 30 later this year, and has been between 16.20 and 17.31 each of the past five seasons, he doesn't figure to improve any in 2009-10.
So we reach the same conclusion: Importing Odom doesn't project to be an upgrade on Beasley. Importing either Boozer or Odom might help the depth situation, but it wouldn't improve the starting five, so it's tough for such a move to have more than a minor effect on the Heat's projected win-loss record.
Similarly, if Miami got Boozer and Odom together, there'd be little gained by the second acquisition, unless Odom moved to small forward. Admittedly, there's a glaring hole at the position, but Odom would lose much of his effectiveness by moving out to the 3 -- at this point in his career, with the way the league has gone and with his shaky long-range shooting, he basically is a pure 4.
Finally, one has to remember that trading for Boozer wouldn't be free. We don't know exactly what the Heat would give up, but it would be
something, and it might weaken them enough at the other positions that it would end up being of no benefit at all. For one example,
this trade I concocted gets them Boozer yet makes them a game worse, based on the model I developed.
Despite all this, there is one way the Heat could add Boozer and Odom, and still improve substantially. That would be if they traded Beasley, too. If Miami could parlay its young forward into an upgrade on the perimeter that provided Wade some quality help, that would change the picture for Miami in a much larger way.
For another example, I
created this trade that's exactly like the first one, except in addition to the Boozer deal, it sends Beasley to Boston for
Rajon Rondo. This is a completely hypothetical example. (Let me emphasize: This is a fictional trade concocted to demonstrate a concept.) This shows how much greater the impact would be if the Heat were to add a quality player at point guard instead of at power forward -- in this example, such a trade added seven wins to the Heat's bottom line.
In other words, a move for Boozer and Odom could help the Heat, but not in isolation. Adding a power forward would be redundant with the talent that already exists -- talent that, ironically, represents Miami's best chance to get better with the current roster.
So if the Heat aren't willing to trade Beasley or can't trade him to get back a high-quality player on the perimeter, it seems futile for them to expect a big boost from Odom and/or Boozer. Acquiring one or even both of them would change the Heat's outlook much less than one might think.
John Hollinger writes for ESPN Insider. To e-mail him, click here.
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