Without making a trade, the Miami Heat are limited this summer during free agency.

They have little salary cap space and no draft assets, so they have to give up a key piece for any chance of restructuring the roster. That means losing a combination of Tyler Herro, Terry Rozier, Duncan Robinson, Jamie Jaquez Jr., and Nikola Jovic must happen.

The latest speculation in the drying pool of free agents is Chicago Bulls forward DeMar DeRozan. There have been various reports of mutual interest between the sides.

“The Heat have popped up as a potentially interested party, but it’s worth noting that they are already around $7 million above the first apron,” wrote CBS Sports Sam Quinn.

But does this make any sense? Does moving Herro or Rozier make the Heat better? Does an aging duo of DeRozan (35) and Jimmy Butler (34) compete for a title?

“Acquiring a signed-and-traded player hard caps you at the first apron, so the Heat wouldn’t just have to trade out however much salary they planned to pay DeRozan, but add another $7 million or so on top of that (and that’s before you talk about filling out the rest of the roster),” Quinn continued. “For this to be feasible, you’d basically have to give up either Tyler Herro or Terry Rozier. Maybe Miami is prepared to do that, but Herro is a decade younger than DeRozan, the Heat just gave up a first-round pick for Rozier, and the Heat already ranked 18th in the NBA in 3-point attempts per game, so subbing out a willing gunner for DeRozan would be suboptimal to say the least.”

While Heat team president Pat Riley is taking criticism, there really isn’t much he can do at this point. The Heat are maybe better off seeing if running it back with a healthy roster makes a difference. If not, they can start breaking from this core next summer when Butler becomes a free agent.

Shandel Richardson is the publisher of Inside The Heat. He can be reached at [email protected]

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