P.J. Tucker wanted to stay with Heat but couldn’t pass up deal with 76ers
P.J. Tucker planned to spend the rest of his NBA career with the Heat, but business got in the way.
“I thought I was going to retire in Miami,” Tucker said to the Miami Herald on Monday as he sat in front of his space in the Philadelphia 76ers’ locker room at Wells Fargo Center.
Tucker, who turns 38 in May, instead took the bigger offer to join the the 76ers in free agency this past summer. He left Miami after one very productive season with the Heat that ended just short of reaching the NBA Finals to sign a fully guaranteed three-year contract worth $33 million with the 76ers.
The Heat wanted to bring back Tucker but was not willing to go as far as the 76ers went. According to multiple sources close to the situation, Miami’s offer maxed out at a fully guaranteed $26.5 million through three seasons using the non-Bird exception.
“I think they wanted the negotiations to be a little slower than it was,” Tucker said prior to his first game back in Miami on Wednesday night as a member of the 76ers. “Just because of the interest right off the bat. Nobody thought I was going to get three years and then to get multiple offers for a full three years, I was ready to move and figure it out.”
The Heat had the ability to match the 76ers’ offer and retain Tucker, but Miami was reluctant to use the $10.5 million nontaxpayer midlevel exception that Philadelphia utilized to sign him.
Why?
First, this three-year deal will end in a year that Tucker turns 40.
Second, such a contract would have significantly limited further moves the Heat could have made to its roster with Kevin Durant’s trade demand still unresolved at the time. That’s because using the $10.5 million non-taxpayer midlevel exception on Tucker would have not only hard-capped the Heat at the apron, but would have also eliminated the exception it used to re-sign Caleb Martin later that summer.
“Honestly, I didn’t want to leave,” Tucker said. “I expressed that I didn’t want to leave. But their situation and them not wanting to be hardcapped, I knew it was
going to be a possibility. My family is still there. So I obviously wanted to be there, but it didn’t work out.”
As it turns out, the hard cap at the $157 million apron is not a concern for a Heat team that’s expected to remain below the $150.3 million luxury tax line this season. But the Heat did take advantage of the midlevel exception it kept available to bring back Martin on a threeyear contract worth about $20.4 million.
“I wanted the full midlevel,” Tucker emphasized. “I thought I deserved the full midlevel and that was something that I wanted. They knew that coming out of the gate. I expressed that I wanted that from the beginning. I feel like for what we did, for what we had, I feel like I deserved that and it just is what it is.
“But I don’t fault them at all. I understand they didn’t want to be hardcapped and wanted to be able to make moves later with whatever they thought the team may need.”
Tucker averaged 7.6 points, 5.5 rebounds and 2.1 assists per game while shooting 41.5 percent from three-point range in his lone season with the Heat. He was a perfect fit in Miami’s switch-heavy defensive scheme with his 6-5, 245-pound frame that allowed him to guard bigger bodies but also bother perimeter players.
Tucker put together one of the best seasons of his NBA career as the Heat’s starting power forward, averaging his most points per game since 2015-16, shooting his highest percentage
from the field since his rookie season when he played in just 17 games in 2006-07, shooting a career-best percentage from three-point range at the time, while averaging his most assists and posting his highest usage rate (an estimate of the percentage of team plays used by a player while on the court) since 2015-16.
In his first season with the 76ers and 12th NBA season, Tucker is averaging 3.6 points, 4.1 rebounds and 0.8 assists per game while shooting 42.6 percent on threes in a starting role.
“Just the team, the team chemistry. We just clicked,” Tucker said of what he remembers from being a part of last season’s Heat team that entered the playoffs as the Eastern Conference’s top seed before being eliminated in Game 7 of the conference finals.
“We had a lot of adversity throughout the year and to still finish No. 1 in the East was kind of crazy to me. For all the games Jimmy [Butler] missed and Bam [Adebayo] breaking his hand, Kyle [Lowry] being out with his personal stuff, but we were still able to win games consistently all year. It was fun. It’s just one of those experiences I’ll remember.”
It’s an experience that Tucker’s former Heat coaches and teammates also remember fondly.
“He’s a hell of a leader,” Butler said of Tucker this week. “He’s honest and you can count him night in and night out to show up and do what you ask him to do. I miss him, we miss him here, but [the 76ers] got a good one.”
Heat forward Max Strus added: “Tuck is the man. Just the way he communicates, the way he plays the game, it’s just easy to play with him. He’s so fun to play with. He just plays the game the right way. That’s the most respect I can give him is that everything he does is the right way. He makes the easy read, he makes other people around him better and he does all the tough things that nobody else wants to do. He’s the man and he’s a good guy to have in your locker room.”
Tucker still speaks to Butler and Lowry nearly every day.
“Jimmy and Kyle are my brothers forever,” Tucker said.
Tucker was the only member of last season’s rotation the Heat lost this past summer, but the team’s results have been vastly different this season. Miami entered Tuesday in seventh place in the East just fighting to avoid the play-in tournament in the final weeks of the regular season.
“I got an idea from talking to Jimmy and Kyle,” Tucker said when asked if he’s surprised by the Heat’s place in the standings this season.
“But it’s so funny, man. Year in and year out, you never know. I’m sure they came into it thinking let’s get back to be No. 1 again or be fighting to win the East. Now in this situation, they still got a chance to still get a good position for the playoffs. But yeah, it is surprising because they have such good personnel.”
Tucker returned to Miami as the Heat’s opponent on Wednesday. The trip gave him another opportunity to reunite with his family after spending the entire All-Star break with them in South Florida.
“It’s the NBA, man. It’s a business,” Tucker said.
INJURY REPORT
Lowry missed his 10th straight game because of left knee soreness on Wednesday against the 76ers. Lowry has been nearing his return, but he and the team continue to take a cautious approach with the injury.
The Heat also remains without Jamal Cain (G League, two-way contract), Nikola Jovic (lower back stress reaction) and Omer Yurtseven (G League assignment).
With Yurtseven joining the Heat’s G League affiliate, the Sioux Falls Skyforce, for his G League assignment on Wednesday, it represents a positive sign in his recovery as he nears his return. Yurtseven has yet to play this season after ankle surgery.
Jovic was supposed to travel with Yurtseven on Wednesday to begin his own G League assignment in Sioux Falls, but those plans changed when the Heat determined Jovic wasn’t yet ready for the next step in his recovery. Jovic has not played with the Heat since late December because of a back injury.
On the other side, 76ers All-Star center Joel Embiid was listed as questionable for the game in Miami because of left foot soreness but was ultimately ruled out, while former Heat center Dewayne Dedmon was ruled out by Philadelphia with left hip soreness.