{"id":38187,"date":"2021-03-18T08:00:32","date_gmt":"2021-03-18T12:00:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=38187"},"modified":"2021-03-23T18:31:37","modified_gmt":"2021-03-23T22:31:37","slug":"meyers-leonard-traded-to-the-oklahoma-city-thunder","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2021\/03\/18\/meyers-leonard-traded-to-the-oklahoma-city-thunder\/","title":{"rendered":"Meyers Leonard and Trevor Ariza Trade is Finalized"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/l\/leoname01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Meyers Leonard<\/a><\/strong> and a 2027 second-round draft pick have been traded from the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/category\/heat\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">Miami Heat<\/a> to the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/category\/thunder\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">Oklahoma City Thunder<\/a>. In exchange, <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/a\/arizatr01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Trevor Ariza<\/a><\/strong> is headed to Miami from Oklahoma City.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Trevor Ariza will be traded to the Miami Heat<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>According to Adrian Wojnarowski, an ESPN Senior NBA Insider, the trade has been finalized.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">ESPN Sources: Oklahoma City is finalizing a trade to send Trevor Ariza to the Miami Heat for Meyers Leonard and a 2027 second-round pick. Leonard must still waive his no-trade clause because of the one-year Bird restriction on his deal, which he\u2019s expected to do for Miami.<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/wojespn\/status\/1372253542535270401?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">March 17, 2021<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Leonard has hardly played in the 2020-21 NBA season. He has only played in three games and started in two of those games. He is currently averaging 3.3 points and 2.3 rebounds per game. His stats are much better in the 2019-20 NBA season, where he averaged 6.1 points, 5.1 rebounds, and 1.1 assists per game. This is while Ariza has not played since the 2019-20 NBA season. In that season, he averaged 8.0 points, 4.6 rebounds, 1.7 assists, and 1.3 steals per game.<\/p>\n<p>This trade could have been triggered by Leonard\u2019s anti-Semitic slur according to Tim Reynolds of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbc.ca\/sports\/basketball\/nba\/nba-meyers-leonard-fined-anti-semetic-slur-1.5945710\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">CBC<\/a>. As a result, Leonard was fined $50K US by the NBA. Miami <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/MiamiHEAT\/status\/1369483385882689541\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">gave a public statement<\/a> saying that Leonard will indefinitely be away from the team because of his actions.<\/p>\n<p>In the grand scheme of things, this trade can benefit both the Thunder and the Heat. It also shows the position that Oklahoma City is in terms of where they stand in the NBA.<\/p>\n<h3><strong>Miami Heat-Oklahoma City Trade Overview<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>What the Thunder are going to gain is another NBA draft pick. This is not surprising as the Thunder have numerous draft picks coming up. This includes getting five first-round draft picks from the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/category\/clippers\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">Los Angeles Clippers<\/a> in exchange for <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/g\/georgpa01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Paul George<\/a><\/strong> according to the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nba.com\/news\/la-clippers-acquire-paul-george-trade\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">NBA<\/a>. With exciting players like <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/g\/gilgesh01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Shai Gilgeous-Alexander<\/a><\/strong> and <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/d\/dortlu01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Luguentz Dort<\/a><\/strong>, the Thunder <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2020\/09\/15\/oklahoma-city-thunder-young-canadian-nucleus\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">are building a great young nucleus<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Unfortunately, for Leonard, this trade is not good news according to <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/wojespn\/status\/1372253666896457741\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Wojnarowski<\/a>. The Thunder plan to waive him once the trade is confirmed. This could be because of Leonard\u2019s anti-Semitic slur that caused him to be fined by the NBA.<\/p>\n<p>Ariza, a small forward\/shooting guard can play a role for the Heat. This is especially true if their star player <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/b\/butleji01.html?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Jimmy Butler<\/a><\/strong> gets injured. However, if Ariza is to make an impact on the Heat it will most likely come from the 2021-22 NBA season instead of the 2020-21 NBA season. Ariza is not in game shape yet and will need time to be back to the player he was in the 2019-20 NBA season.<\/p>\n<p>Main Image: <a id=\"JYLsWCAQRZB0N-uoPZvSsA\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/578003354\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'JYLsWCAQRZB0N-uoPZvSsA',sig:'VPd2SBXf4djSreHPa2DE1FOcmggmcwBmoG7MOAi-oGg=',w:'594px',h:'395px',items:'578003354',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Meyers Leonard and a 2027 second-round draft pick have been traded from the Miami Heat to the Oklahoma City Thunder. In exchange, Trevor Ariza is headed to Miami from Oklahoma City. Trevor Ariza will be traded to the Miami Heat According to Adrian Wojnarowski, an ESPN Senior NBA Insider, the trade has been finalized. ESPN [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3104,"featured_media":38211,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[16,1608,62,3,22],"tags":[944,1084],"class_list":["post-38187","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-heat","category-basketball","category-nba","category-news","category-thunder","tag-meyers-leonard","tag-trevor-ariza"],"modified_by":"Zach Kircher","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38187","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3104"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38187"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38187\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38211"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38187"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38187"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38187"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}