Bradley signs with Heat after Crowder leaves
The Heat signed veteran guard Avery Bradley to a two-year, $12 million deal on Saturday.
The Miami Heat lost Jae Crowder, one of the most important pieces in its playoff run, on Saturday but moved quickly to replace him by agreeing to terms with veteran guard Avery Bradley, three league sources told the Miami Herald.
Unlike Crowder, the 6-3 Bradley is not big enough to play power forward. But Bradley, who will turn 30 on Thanksgiving, is a skilled three-point shooter and considered one of the league’s better defensive guards.
Bradley’s two-year contract is worth nearly $12 million and includes a team option for the second year. He will make about $6 million in the first year — the only guaranteed year — of the contract.
Heat president Pat Riley called Bradley on Friday night to pitch him on playing for the Heat if Miami failed to re-sign Crowder, according to a source with direct knowledge.
And the Heat moved quickly to close the deal with Bradley at midday Saturday after learning that
Crowder would leave.
Crowder opted for a three-year deal with Phoenix worth $29 million instead of a two-year deal with a team option in the second year with Miami. The Heat’s offer to Crowder included a salary for this upcoming season in the
$14 million range, according to a league source, and Miami was unwilling to offer more than one guaranteed season because of its desire to retain substantial cap space in the 2021 offseason.
Heat officials made it known they wanted Crowder back, but they also made it clear there was a master plan in place for the 2021-22 season and they’re sticking to it, according to the source.
Bradley was the second player the Heat added on Saturday. Miami also agreed to terms with veteran forward Maurice Harkless on a one-year, $3.6 million deal.
Harkless, a 6-9 combo forward, split last season between the Los Angeles Clippers and the New York Knicks.
He averaged 5.8 points while shooting 50.2 per
cent from the field and
34.7 percent on threes, 3.9 rebounds and 1.1 assists last season.
With Goran Dragic and Meyers Leonard having agreed to re-sign on Friday night, Miami’s roster is basically full with 15 players under standard contracts, which is the NBA regular-season limit. Free agent signings are allowed to begin Sunday at 12:01 p.m.
Dragic agreed to a twoyear, $37.5 million deal that will pay him $18 million this season with a
$19.5 million team option for 2021-22. Leonard agreed to a two-year deal topping $19 million, with about $9 million due this season and a team option in 2021-22.
In Bradley, Miami is getting a player who was first-team All NBA Defense in 2016. He received a single vote in All-Defensive team balloting this past season. Portland guard CJ McCollum reportedly once called him the best defensive guard in the league.
Bradley, who has averaged 11.8 points and shot 36.4 percent from threepoint range during a 10year career, spent his first seven NBA seasons in Boston and subsequently played for the Los Angeles Clippers, Los Angeles Lakers, Detroit Pistons and Memphis Grizzlies.
In July 2019, he signed a two-year deal with the Lakers but opted out of playing in the Orlando bubble primarily because his oldest child, six-yearold son Liam, had a history of struggling to recover from respiratory illnesses. He declined his $5 million player option with the Lakers before the start of free agency on Friday.
Before the NBA temporarily shut down because of COVID-19, Bradley averaged 8.6 points, 2.3 rebounds and 24.2 minutes for the Lakers, starting 44 of his 49 appearances and shooting 44.4 percent from the field and 36.4 percent on threes (63 for 173).
And this is one indication of his defensive acumen: Players shot 40.6 percent last season when Bradley was defending them; those players shot 45.4 percent overall. He fills the need of a quality wing defender, a void left by Derrick Jones Jr.’s departure to the Portland Trail Blazers.
At 6-3, Bradley can play shooting guard or point guard.
After receiving free agent commitments from Bradley, Dragic, Harkless, Udonis Haslem and Leonard, the Heat’s current salary-cap breakdown for this upcoming season looks like this: Jimmy Butler ($34.4 million), Dragic
($18 million), Andre Iguodala ($15 million), Kelly Olynyk ($12.6 million), Leonard ($9.7 million), Bradley ($5.7 million), Bam Adebayo ($5.1 million), Tyler Herro ($3.8 million), Harkless ($3.6 million), Duncan Robinson ($1.7 million), Kendrick Nunn ($1.7 million), Haslem
($1.6 million cap hit) KZ Okpala ($1.5 million),
Chris Silva ($1.5 million), and the projected $2.6 million cap hit for Precious Achiuwa. In addition, a $5.2 million waive-and-stretch cap hit for Ryan Anderson is still on Miami’s books, as well as a $350,000 waive-and-stretch cap hit for AJ Hammons.
Add all that up, and the Heat has about $124 million of guaranteed salary committed to 15 players for this upcoming season with the 2020-21 salary cap set at $109.14 million.
Miami essentially replaced Crowder, Jones and Solomon Hill with Bradley, Harkless and Achiuwa.
The Heat is now about $8 million away from the tax line of $132.627 million after accounting for the commitments from Bradley, Dragic, Harkless, Haslem and Leonard. That gives Miami some cushion for a potential trade if it wants to take in more salary than it sends out (within cap rules) at the trade deadline or before then.
In order to sign Bradley and Harkless, Miami will use exception money since it’s already over the salary cap. The Heat has the ability to utilize a $9.3 million midlevel exception and/or a $3.6 million biannual exception, and exceptions can’t be combined.
The Heat could fit Bradley ($5.7 million) and Harkless ($3.6 million) both into the $9.3 midlevel exception to preserve the biannual exception.
Why would Miami do this? It would allow for the Heat to use the biannual exception next offseason since this exception can’t be used in two consecutive years.
Or the Heat could simply use the entire $3.6 million biannual exception to sign Harkless and part of the $9.3 midlevel exception to sign Bradley if the math did not add up to take the other route.
In either scenario, the Heat will be operating under a $138.9 million hard cap this season. That number is the tax apron — about $6 million above the tax line — but it’s not especially restrictive for Miami because it prefers not to be a taxpaying team this season anyway after finishing as a tax team this past season.
Both options were possibilities as of Saturday afternoon, as the contracts were still being finalized.
Guard Gabe Vincent will be one of the Heat’s two two-way players, a deal that allows him to play as many as 50 of the Heat’s 72 scheduled games in the regular season. Miami’s other two-way contract slot is still open.
Teams are allowed to carry up to 20 players during training camp and the preseason. With Vincent signing a two-way deal, Miami now has 16 players on its roster (15 under standard contracts and one under a two-way contract).
The Heat will likely choose to fill out the remaining four spots on its preseason roster with Exhibit 10 contracts, which includes an invitation to training camp. Exhibit 10 deals, which do not count against the salary cap or luxury tax, can be converted to two-way contracts.
FUTURE CONSEQUENCES
Of the four players who agreed to terms with the Heat since 6 p.m. Friday (Dragic, Leonard, Harkless and Bradley), none has guaranteed money owed beyond this upcoming season, and Harkless’ deal is for only one year.
If the 2021-22 salary cap is $112.4 million — as ESPN projects — the Heat would have space (barely enough) to sign Giannis Antetokounmpo or guard Victor Oladipo to a max deal next summer. But that’s on the condition that Adebayo does not receive the max contract he’s eligible to sign until the Dec. 21 deadline and instead waits until the 2021 offseason for that deal.
Here’s how the math would work: If Adebayo waits a year on his extension, his 2021-22 cap hit would be $15.3 million. Under this scenario, the Heat would have between $72 million and $74.6 million committed to seven players for 2021-22 (depending on Nunn’s cap hit, which is undetermined).
That includes a $5.2 million waive-and-stretch hit for Ryan Anderson. Add another $3.8 million for required cap holds, and that would leave Miami with just enough — with less than $1 million to spare — to accommodate Antetokoumpo’s first-year max salary of $33.7 million if the cap is $112.4 million.
But if Adebayo signs a max extension before
Dec. 21, his cap hit would be $28.1 million for 202122 (if the cap is at that reported $112.4 million figure), leaving Miami without max space and needing either to shed salary in exchange for draft picks or execute a sign and trade to add Antetokounmpo or another top free agent next summer.
Bradley, Leonard, Dragic, Iguodala and Chris Silva all have non-guaranteed contracts for 2021-22. The Heat, if it chooses, could exercise the options of Leonard, Dragic and/or Iguodala before free agency starts next summer to facilitate a sign and trade the following week.