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At c-arminstaffing.com, why should you reach out to them? If you work in a medical office or a hospital, they can bring all the CR equipment, the extra equipment, all of it to you. They will fully staff everything. Nelson, a huge heat fan, he's been to a bunch of our events. He's been texting me about whether or not they were going to get Donovan Mitchell. That's why I decided that he should sponsor this episode. Again, check them out at c-arminstaffing.com. And now, today's episode. Welcome to Five on the Floor, a daily insider show on the Miami Heat and the NBA, featuring Ethan Skolnick, Greg Solvander, and Alex Toledo, plus others from the Five Reason Sports Network. All right, welcome back to Five on the Floor. Here's today's floor plan. I'm Ethan Skolnick. You follow me, Ethan J. Skolnick, and in Five Reason Sports, we've got Sean Rochester. You can follow him at S. Rochester NBA. All right, we haven't been doing a ton of Donovan Mitchell podcast lately because this seemed like the inevitable outcome. And as much as I would have liked to have done 58 of them, like we did with Damian Liller last year, it seemed like this was going to resolve itself sooner rather than later. The Cavaliers had been privately expressing confidence that Donovan would resign. Donovan has resigned. He signed a three-year extension. It's worth slightly north of $150 million. Again, there were whispers at certain times that he might be interested in Miami. We know the relationship with Bam on a bio, but ultimately, he decided to stay in a place that he has made his home, and he actually put out a clip from Wolf of Wall Street. I'm Ephin Stayan, just to rub it into heat fans and everybody else even more. So Donovan Mitchell is still a Cavalier, and I'll ask you this question, Sean. Are the heat up S's Creek? I think we're not in very nice calm waters. That's for sure. Now, where you want to be. Like you said, it was kind of expected. And so because of that, I feel like it kind of lessened the blow this morning. It wasn't a surprise like the day news when that came in that morning. But all that being said, it's like these strikeouts on these stars. What's the pivot now? There has to be another move. And I think we'll talk about that as we move through this episode, but it's -- yeah, they're not sitting in a good spot. That's for sure. And look, I think we need to separate two different things here. And I know fans are going to get on me, and again, somehow we've become a proxy for the front office, which I don't really understand that position, considering how many texts I get from the front office. Not happy with things that I say. But again, there are really two different things here. There's where the blame lies for something like this, and this is where I typically push back, because again, how do you acquire a player who isn't available? He signs an extension. He isn't available. And we can talk about them throwing the kitchen sink at the calves, and I guess we'll find out in the post-mortem exactly what happened there. But ultimately, if the guy wants to stay, he wants to stay, and just last year ultimately, if another general manager is not going to deal with you, he's not going to deal with you. And what ends up happening in these cases is that these aggregated stories get thrown out where it's like, okay, now it becomes seen as a pattern that the heat won't go get a star. Star has to be available. Like, you can make an argument about Bradley Beale last year and say, okay, he was available. Yes, absolutely. Then it becomes a discussion. Was it worth acquiring him at that price with a no-trade clause? The heat decided no. I agreed with them on that. They were right about that, okay? Kairi Irving, there were other issues at the time that led to them not pursuing him. We could have an argument about whether that was a smart decision or not. I can see both sides of that argument, and obviously Kairi has not been as much trouble for his latest team as he was for his previous three, okay, again, we can have a conversation about that. But if a player is not available, he's not available, okay? So that's the first thing I want to say, like just throwing it all in and saying, well, they won't get a star, that to me is, I'm still going to say it, and I know people are going to come at me at this. That to me is unfair. But the second part of this, where do they stand now? That's a reasonable conversation to have, okay? And it's a reasonable conversation to have of how they got in this position where they don't really have the assets to go all in, okay? They have enough assets to get in the conversation. They don't have the kind of assets to do, say, you know, what the Nix just did, which was, you know, trade four first round picks for a very high level role player, okay? Like they are not in that or the wolves did for Go Bear. They don't have that kind of equity. And that gets into, okay, asset management. And that's a conversation that I think is reasonable to have on the podcast about some of the contracts they had to get off of, picks they had to attach, you know, other things that went on. I mean, even going back to the Jimmy Butler trade, which was well worth it, they had to attach an additional first round pick at that time, if you remember, because of the way that things blew up in Dallas, okay, because originally they were supposed to get heartless in that deal before he ended up coming later. So Sean, I just want to separate these things because I understand the anger and they're running it back and all the rest of this, and I get it, and I don't want to watch that product this year either, okay, if that's all, if this is all there is. And I say that as someone who hosts a podcast and has to host it every day. But I just, I want to separate those two things. We have to have the second conversation. The first conversation to me is unreasonable. It's unhinged, honestly. Yeah, and you're going to see that happen in the near next couple of days with Trey Young with Lori Markinan, like just because these names are constantly on your Twitter timeline or they're in the trade machine as one of the most popular things, doesn't mean that the heat front office struck out on it, just because you can formulate a trade that may work, you know, according to Twitter, GM's and on 2K and all those different things. Like it's two different realities. Now, that being said, you're right. I mean, there's a great episode of Miami Heat Beat that I listened to this morning that Brian Goins went through and talked about how they kind of got themselves in this spot. And the next few years, like this year, they, you really want to make the playoffs because if you don't, your pick is going to end up the next couple of years because you have two that you owe from different times, like you said, of getting the Jimmy trade. And I think the other one is when we got Terry, that those trades become unproductive first round picks and that's not where you want to be at all. And you know, I think the other thing to think about is you can pivot this pretty quick. Like a few years ago, you would not have said New York, that pretty, you would not have said Philly, that pretty and got themselves the spot that they can land up all towards. So we have Andy, who's great at his job, obviously, it's just going to take some moves to get yourself, you know, out of this current position. And as you look at the Eastern Conference right now, and we talk about it being the weaker of the two conferences, I still believe it is overall. But Boston is coming back intact. It appears Philadelphia has loaded up with Paul George and Eric Gordon and other pieces that they've added to the mix there. New York, we'll see how it works out. I think they are going to miss Heart and Stein. They seem to have, you know, again, a lot of duplication among their players, but I'm not going to argue against the fact that they have what is the most necessary thing on the NBA right now, which is they got a bunch of three and D's. And, and I mean, if your best player is Jimmy Butler, and he's going to have to see Ananobi Heart bridges, I'm not feeling good about that right now. Cleveland got Mitchell back. They, to me, still need to make them another move, okay, because I think the roster doesn't quite work, but the roster may be better than Miami's. Orlando is going to get better after what they experienced last year. They haven't lost anything. They still could make additional moves here. So I'm not going to sugarcoat this. Like, to me, the Heat looked like a playing team. Right. That's... They don't forget Indiana. You just read Indiana. Who just wanted to do certain titles. Right. So they look like a playing team to me again. And if, if this is all there is, and I, you know, there was a tweet that came out as we were about to pod here from, from Anthony Chang, including second round pick, Paul Larson. He has 11 players in standard contracts for next season. The Heat guarantees Atlanta Robinson's contract for next season. He'll be the 12th. In other words, unless there's a trade, the Heat's roster for next season is almost full. I mean, that sounds like running it back, but running it back harder, which is something that Brady coined that should probably go on a T-shirt. And I know that there will be, if there's no move here, a spin towards internal development, Hawkez, Yovitch, I mean, again, there's a case to be made for that. Rosier's health. I have to see where that's at, see what he looks like in a full season. But here's some things. Again, I'm not going to sugarcoat. A Rosier hero backward is not going to work. It's not going to work. Okay. It's not going to work defensively. There was enough of a sample size to me. I know they wanted to see more of it, but there was enough of a sample size to me to say that's not functional. Duncan's still on the roster next year. How is his back right now? Haven't gotten a lot of reports about that. He said rest would help it. You know, again, is he going to be your starting to or are you moving hero to the bench? I mean, you know, again, I liked their draft and I liked what they did after the draft in terms of some of the young players. They just gave a two way to Kascha Johnson. I know he fans are freaking out about Drew Smith. The timing and the optics of that are not ideal. I said at the time when Drew Smith got hurt that he would likely be back the next year on a two way. Spill likes him. Okay. But again, we're talking about a low upside player. They're likely going to lose Kayla Martin, probably in the next 24 to 48 hours. Hey, would Highsmith is no guarantee to return at this point. There's a market for him. So you're going to look at the roster and say, ultimately, if this is all there is, it's worse than last year because I was, I was even counting on the fact that Dolan Wright was coming back and he signed the one year in Milwaukee. Where is their point of attack defense, Josh? So again, I, I, Sean, I'm not going to sure code it. Okay. It's, it's not great. But we do need to do the deep dives that Brian goings did on Heat Beatty's. Very good at that. But again, how they got here and how they pivot. And we'll do more of those. We just wanted to react right away to the Mitchell situation. All right. Do want to mention another great sponsor of the five reasons sports network. Our friends over at prize picks, no matter how your team is doing, you can still play prize picks. Use the code five, FIVE, get that initial deposit matched up to $100 legal again in the state of Florida and many, many, many other states. Again, there's plenty on there right now, WNBA, MLS, cup America is on there right now. MMA boxing, lots that you can play in, of course, baseball. So check it out, prize picks.com, use the code five, get that initial deposit matched up to $100. And let me ask you this. Paul George is off the board, Donovan Mitchell's off the board. I, there doesn't seem to be a ton of movement on KD, although I never count that out because there's always weird stuff that goes on with him. The others who have been talked about, okay, Levine, Trey Young. Does any of this excite you? If you got an asset back with Levine, does it even make any sense? There's not an asset that Chicago can add that I take Levine because I just don't see how adding Levine changes the situation. Like he is arguably better than Tyler here. Just to say that he is. If he's not healthy, it's not helping you. If he is better than Tyler at the price that it comes, he's not enough better than Tyler that it actually makes a difference. And you have to add something to Tyler's contract to get to Levine, I think. I just think those are the types of moves that are, are short-sighted that, you know, like we're not that one player away. Like even Trey Young, who was arguably a top somewhere in the top 20, I would say at the NBA for sure, if you add him to the mix, maybe. But I also think it's almost too short-sighted in that, like, to me, I'm more at the point now, not giving up, not tanking. They're not going to do that. You know that. You told us that many times that they've communicated that, but you know, you go in the next season. Right now, you can look at Terry, Tyler, and Duncan. Tyler's got three years left, Terry's got two years left, Duncan can essentially be an expiring if you want it to be, try to move those pieces for expirings and assets. You're not going to get a bunch for them. We all know that now at this point, but can you recoup some stuff and start to clear your books? If Jimmy walks at the end of the season, Jimmy walks at the end of the season, now you have BAM, you have your young guys, and you have all that cap space, not meaning that you go into the markets trying to sign guys, but you can get trades, you can do things. I just think it's a soft reset more so than tearing it down to the studs and rebuilding completely. All right. So the final question, and then we close, and then I'll probably be on with Alex later today, make sure that you're refreshing the feed because we'll have new podcasts, shorter podcasts than typical and just get them up here. Would you trade Jimmy now if you could? I think it's such a tough thing because I understand the reasoning behind it. I think I would have a conversation with him. What do you want us to do? Are you okay with a year that's probably going to end in a first round exit similar to last year, and you try to go all out and recoup your value and knowing you're probably going to walk? Do you have the conversation that if after a year, even if you play well, we're not bringing you back. We're not going to pay you that three or four years, even if you go to the open market. So letting him walk, it has its advantages for the cap, but it doesn't retain value for your roster. I would explore it, but I don't think it's going to happen. The only way I see that happening is if in late December, early January, you have just had an awful season and pray for all of us that have to watch this team and make content over it. That's when you explore trading Jimmy because you just have nothing left of that. All right. Well, we'll see. They've pulled rabbits out of the hat before, but I don't know if it's happening this time. But we'll see what kind of signals we get over the next 24 to 48 hours, but it felt like they went into this offseason again. They weren't going to wait Mitchell out forever. I actually think it's good for them that this settled. They probably had indications that it was going to play out this way. Again, we were leaning that way from everything that we had heard, but I just want to be clear as we close. I understand the frustration from Heat fans who looked at Jimmy's window and said, "Okay, there was an opportunity here to win a championship," and there were opportunities. They were in the finals twice, and they were shot from the finals another time with probably their best team. I thought that year, and it just didn't work out. And now we're in this position where, again, you're counting on guys to want to leave their current situations and then to have the assets to make a move for them. The one thing I'm going to push back on is I don't understand how this is being talked about like this is a money thing. If the guy is not available, they would have paid not of Mitchell. If the guy is not available, he's not available. That's where it's at. But also, I sort of pity how they're going to position the product for who has to position the product for next year if this is it. And that's even with saying that I expect major improvements from Hakez and Yovitch to become more frontline players, but it does feel like we're kind of in a transition stage right now. And with Jimmy's situation, that adds to it. It's kind of weird. But again, fans are never going to be happy. The Panthers just want a Stanley Cup, and yesterday, everybody was complaining about the depth guys that they lost. This is just, I was going to say, the Panthers, welcome to the club. You are now officially a big-time team in South Florida. You have joined the ranks of the Dolphins in the Heat, where everything you do is going to be criticized, even though you literally had the Stanley Cup and Elbar room the other day. All right. Thanks for Sean. I'll be back with Alex a little bit later. Don and Mitchell is a cavalier still. The Miami Heat signed Drew Smith to a two-way. Have a good one. Thank you for listening to The Five on the Floor on the Fire isn't Sports Network. After all, someone needs to listen to my dad. [BLANK_AUDIO]
