D’Angelo Russell trade rumors: Miami Heat have ‘registered interest’ as Timberwolves are in a tricky spot

NBA trade season is about to start heating up. The deadline is less than a month away (Feb. 9), and one name you can always count on hearing in the swell of speculation is D’Angelo Russell, who seemingly lives in a trade-rumor duplex next to Myles Turner.  

Here we go again. Yahoo’s Jake Fischer re-reported on Friday what has been reported before: that the Timberwolves and Russell made “little progress” on a contract extension last summer, and now that Russell, who is in the final year of a $117 million deal, is a free agent this summer, and being that the Wolves probably don’t want to commit to him for another big deal, he is a “natural trade candidate.”

One team that has shown interest in trading for Russell, per Fischer, is the Miami Heat. 

The Heat have in fact registered interest in Russell, source told Yahoo Sports, but a direct deal for Lowry would appear unlikely. [Kyle] Lowry is just a few months away from entering the final season of his own contract worth roughly $30 million in average annual salary, and it’s hard to imagine Wolves officials being eager to extend the aging guard another exorbitant payday when he becomes extension eligible this summer — putting Minnesota in the exact situation it faced with Russell last July.

Trading for a player on an expiring contract is always tricky. Fischer notes that Minnesota “won’t simply move Russell to move him,” meaning they aren’t going to take 20 cents on the dollar for fear of losing Russell for nothing in the summer. Of course they’re going to say that. For what it’s worth, Russell, as tepid endorsements go, has been pretty decent this season, at least relative to what can be realistically expected of him. 

He’s having his most efficient shooting year. He’s also the guy who was benched down the stretch of an elimination playoff game vs. Memphis last May and recently unfollowed the Wolves’ Instagram account. There’s no real secret to what you get with Russell: a non-All-Star who can generate offense at an upper-middle-class level but for myriad reasons isn’t going to be the fulcrum of a contender. He’s been cast as an empty-stats guy, and that’s not entirely fair. But in spirit, it’s not entirely inaccurate, either. 

Russell is good enough to get paid a lot of money but not good enough to necessarily be worth it. That makes him a tough sell that probably doesn’t fit into many teams’ plans. It probably makes for a bear trade market. No question the Wolves would move him. The question is how many teams would take him? We shall see.