The Miami Heat traded away Shabazz Napier to the Orlando Magic one year after using a first round pick upon him in order to save on the luxury tax.

“I’ve always understood the business. I got traded on draft night [from Charlotte to Miami],” Napier said. “I never allowed it to push me away from my ultimate goal. It’s still the same as a young kid growing up. It was just to play in the NBA, it was to make an impact.

“I knew for a fact coming into my rookie year I wasn’t going to make the crazy impact I want to make as a young kid. It’s going to take time.”

Pat Riley denied insinuations that LeBron James tried to have Erik Spoelstra fired as head coach of the Miami Heat during his tenure with the franchise.

"Not from him to me, ever," Riley said Thursday of James, who left the Heat two seasons ago in free agency to return to Cleveland. "So a lot of stuff is following him out the door. Whether it's right or wrong, it's just the nature of it. But as far as that goes, no, he never, ever walked in and said anything."

Riley's comments come on the heels of Israel-based reports earlier this week in which Heat limited ownership partner Raanan Katz suggested James was largely responsible for David Blatt's firing and he tried to do the same with Spoelstra.

The rumors James has dealt with actually remind Riley of his own experiences leaving the Lakers and the Knicks.

"I've been in that situation twice," said Riley. "I left Los Angeles, and a lot of stuff followed me out the door to New York. A lot of stuff followed me down here to Miami. It took almost 10 years to sort of get out of that storyline."

The Miami Heat have reached out to Ray Allen multiple times since the 2014 offseason about rejoining the team.

Allen hasn't played in the NBA in 19 months and was reportedly considering a return last season.

Many of Allen's acquaintances expect him to remain retired.

The Heat have given Allen a standing offer to return and last reached out to him in the offseason.

Hassan Whiteside rejected a guaranteed multi-year deal in the Chinese Basketball Association to sign a non-guaranteed two-year deal with the Miami Heat.

“I never aimed for the money,” Whiteside told Yahoo. “Before I came to the NBA last [season], per year, I would have made more going to China than on my Miami Heat contract. If I went, I might have just stayed in China. I wasn’t chasing the dollars, though. I was chasing the dream of becoming an amazing NBA player. All of that comes, obviously. The contract, the fame. Even before I knew anything about money, I was a little kid and I didn’t know how much these players made. I wanted that – to be on TV, to have people looking up to me.

“Once I left the NBA, I realized what I lost, realized the lessons that I needed in order to stay. I always had faith to keep pushing. It’s tough just to be in the league. There are only about 400 guys in the NBA, so any position that you play, it is impossible. I had a tough journey and I’m still writing my book.”

Whiteside will be a free agent in the offseason and the Heat do not own his Bird rights.

The Iowa Energy acquired the rights to Whiteside from the Rio Grande Valley Vipers.

Iowa's coach, Bob Donewald Jr., wrote a letter to Whiteside before training camp.

“I told Hassan: You have a clean slate here,” Donewald told Yahoo. “His reputation wasn’t where it needed to be, so this was his chance to work. He worked and worked, pouted, and then got back to work. Rinse and repeat. We wanted to make sure he got back to being a grinder. We had to forget about whatever happened in Reno, whatever happened with the Kings.

“When I was with Paul Silas as an assistant, Paul would always say, ‘Cream rises to the top.’ For a player like Hassan, that was the consistent message. And the cream rose.”

Donewald pressed Whiteside in practices and fil studies.

“What do you want out of Iowa?” Donewald asked.

“I want to be the starting center,” Whiteside told the coach.

“No, I want you to leave here and make tens of millions,” Donewald replied.

Goran Dragic had an MRI to confirm a mild calf strain.

Dragic will be re-evaluated in one week.

Hassan Whiteside will be a free agent in the offseason and the Miami Heat don't own his Bird Rights.

"This is a guy who is going to get a max contract in the summer. And he's absolutely not a Heat player," said Windhorst on Zach Lowe's podcast. "His style of play, his personality, the way he goes about his business is not congruent with the way the Heat normally go about themselves.

"The Heat have a decision to make: do you ride out the season with Whiteside or do you package him with (Luol) Deng before the deadline."

Goran Dragic has his own theory for the struggles of the Phoenix Suns.

“It feels like they’re always changing something,” Dragic told Yahoo Sports. “They’re not like Miami, San Antonio, those teams that are really loyal when they find something.”

Dragic was traded by the Suns last February to the Miami Heat after the team signed a third ball dominant guard in Isaiah Thomas to go with him and Eric Bledsoe.

“Me and Bledsoe, we built really great chemistry together, we played well and the whole team did. Everybody expected that we’re going to get some big guys that we thought we needed, but they did another move, they bring in a point guard and it was tough,” Dragic told Yahoo. “I was a little bit frustrated. It was tough, especially for me, because I was playing off the ball all the time, and I was guarding [small forwards]. That was tough for me, but they did what they did.”

Dragic will return to play the Suns on Friday.

“I always believe when you find some pieces that you leave those pieces [alone]. But then you upgrade the other positions. Like San Antonio is doing. They always have the Big Three, but then it’s a good team. They always find another player at another position, so they’re always good. But that’s not my call,” Dragic told Yahoo, with an uncomfortable chuckle. “I was just there to play basketball. I tried to do my job.”

Hassan Whiteside missed his first game of the season on Monday and is likely to miss at least one more game.

Whiteside can't remember when he banged his right knee in Sunday's win but he felt pain during the plane ride home and the next morning.

"It's just a lot of soreness right now," Whiteside said. "I really feel like I can't really do anything as far as running or jumping or anything."

Whiteside doesn't believe the injury will be a long-term issue.

"I'm kind of figuring that out," he responded when asked if it might be a bone bruise. "It's under the knee cap, around the patella tendon."

Jarnell Stokes, a forward playing on assignment with the Sioux Falls Skyforce from the Miami Heat, has been named NBA Development League Performer of the Week for games played Monday, Dec. 28 through Sunday, Jan. 3.  The honor is the first of Stokes’ career. 

Stokes (6-9, 255, Tennessee) guided Sioux Falls to a 3-0 week, averaging 22.3 points on 75.7 percent shooting from the floor (28-for-37) to go with 8.3 rebounds, 1.7 assists, 1.3 blocks and 1.0 steals.  He recorded a double-double with 22 points and 11 rebounds in a 104-88 win over the Raptors 905 on Jan. 2.  On Dec. 31, he finished with 26 points and connected on 11-of-13 from the field in a win over the Raptors.  

For the season, Stokes has appeared in 11 games on assignment in Sioux Falls, averaging 19.3 points, 8.8 rebounds, 1.2 steals and 29.0 minutes.