Brian Windhorst’s ‘Godfather Move’ Is Most Pat Riley-ish

The Miami Heat are in a very interesting position right now. Being a few inches or so short of an NBA Finals berth this past season, on the arms of a late Jimmy Butler three-point attempt, they also find themselves in a position to, potentially, make some massive upgrades to the roster.

There are a ton of names out there, such as Bradley Beal, Donovan Mitchell, or maybe even a longshot like Zach LaVine. None of them have officially been linked to Miami but, at least, in the case of Beal and Mitchell, there has been some smoke there for some time.

Among all of that though, there has been a lot of noise emanating from the direction of the Brooklyn Nets in recent days. While Kyrie Irving is the pendulum from which it all swings, there is another guy over there with his future seemingly tied to the fate of Irving.

All of the chatter has left Kevin Durant “considering options with his future“.

The Miami Heat might be in play for Kyrie Irving—or are they? Wouldn’t the Pat Riley-ish move be to wait for it all to blow up and then chase Kevin Durant?

While Irving has, reportedly, put the Miami Heat on his list of preferred teams if things don’t sort themselves out, there haven’t been any official mentions of Durant and the Miami Heat either.

But, there have been scenarios thrown out there. One of them came from long-time LeBron James whisperer, Brian Windhorst, of ESPN.

Here were his thoughts on the scenario.

The Godfather Move is not to trade for Kyrie Irving. The Godfather Move is to let the Kyrie Irving situation blow up and then wait for Kevin Durant to say he wants out of there. That’s the Miami Heat move

While you may not always agree with Windhorst’s takes, this is one of them that actually makes a ton of sense. That is the most Pat Riley-ish move associated with this whole scenario.

For a man that wants you to throw a whale to him if he’s out there, Pat Riley wouldn’t go for the easy pickings. He would wait until that key moment and try for the highest prize.

Now, that would be the front end of how something like that might happen, but a lot of us probably don’t want to talk about the back end. If Kevin Durant were to join the Miami Heat—the cost might get as high as a Bam Adebayo… but that’s another topic for another day.