The
Miami Heat have reached an agreement to trade center
Hassan Whiteside to the
Portland Trail Blazers, the Sun Sentinel has confirmed through two
NBA sources.
In return for offloading the final season on Whiteside's contract, the Heat will receive forwards Maurice Harkless and Meyers Leonard.
The trade cannot be formally completed until Saturday's end of the NBA's offseason personnel moratorium.
A party familiar with the Heat's trade machinations said the deal still leaves the Heat shy of completing the sign-and-trade agreement for Philadelphia 76ers guard Jimmy Butler, but eases what had been far more complex math when it comes to the NBA's luxury tax and hard cap.
The trade lowers the Heat's position against the 2019-20 salary cap and luxury tax, with Whiteside going out at $27.1 million for 2019-20, and Leonard coming in at $11.3 million and Harkless $11 million. As with Whiteside, the Leonard and Harkless deals expire after the coming season.
Leonard is a fit similar to Heat forward Kelly Olynyk, a big man with significant outside range. Harkless allows the Heat to extend their depth on the wing.
The Heat had moved away from Whiteside in the intervening years since he signed his four-year, $98 million contract in the initial minutes of free agency in 2016.
Whiteside reacted with jubilation on his Instagram account, posting a video that had him shouting “We got shooters” about playing with Damian Lillard and CJ McCollum in Portland.
The trade with the Trail Blazers likely will further cement Bam Adebayo as the Heat's center of the future, with the 2017 first-round pick out of Kentucky supplanting Whiteside in the starting lineup by the end of last season.
Whiteside grew frustrated with his lack of playing time, but nonetheless last month opted into the final season of his contract, with salaries and opportunities growing limited for post-oriented big men.
Still, the tension between Whiteside and coach Erik Spoelstra was palpable, even with Whiteside appreciative of the Heat offering the opportunity to resurrect his career.
Whiteside said at season's end that he would enter the offseason conflicted.
"You definitely want to have the money," he said. "But you also want to play."
Whiteside was reduced to a reserve role after missing three games in late February and early March with a strained left hip. He averaged 23.3 minutes per game in 2018-19, the fewest in his five seasons with the Heat, down from a high of 32.6 in 2016-17.
At season's end, he proved prescient when he said, "It's going to be an interesting summer."
The Trail Blazers, along with the Dallas Mavericks, had been among the teams most interested in Whiteside at the start of 2016 free agency, with Whiteside later lamenting bypassing the overtures from Portland.
"When I re-signed with the Heat, it was more of an impulse," Whiteside said in April of his 2016 free-agency decision.
Whiteside’s opportunity for playing time was bolstered Monday with the decision by Enes Kanter to sign with the Boston Celtics.