Haslem returning
Heat President Pat Riley expects to sign veteran.
CORAL GABLES — Miami Heat President Pat Riley said Thursday he expects veteran power forward Udonis Haslem to be back with the team and plans to escalate his efforts to have veteran guard Dwyane Wade return as well.
“I have a real good feeling that UD is going to be back,” Riley said at the ceremonial groundbreaking of the Miami Heat Sports Medicine Center at Miami Orthopedics & Sports Medicine Institute. “There’s not been any announcement on that. It’s just a gut feeling about UD and what he wants to do.”
As for Wade, Riley said last month that he expected the situation to be resolved in midAugust, a timeline that has been extended.
Like Haslem, Wade is deliberating a return for a 16th NBA season.
“Well, I couldn’t get resolved in mid-August because I was on the Amalfi Coast with Micky, having pizza and meatballs. I was on vacation,” Riley said of his annual Mediterranean getaway with Heat owner Micky Arison. “We’ve been in constant communication with Leon Rose, his attorney. Now that I’m back, in town, and we’re really ramping up for training camp, I know Dwyane’s in California right now with the marketing team, getting ready for the season, so I’ll have a conversation with him somewhere shortly.
“I texted him after he got his long-term deal with [Chinese apparel company] Li Ning. We want him back. He and Udonis, we want ’em back, but we’re giving ’em space. We know our young guys and we need to anchor our young team with a vet-
eran presence of the both of them.”
Because of the Heat’s position against the salary cap, their options for Wade are the $5.3 million taxpayer midlevel exception and the $2.4 million veteran minimum.
The difference between options is significant. Because of where the Heat stand against the luxury tax, signing Wade to the $5.3 million taxpayer midlevel exception would result in an actual cash outlay of $14.2 million for the coming season, based on the Heat moving into the second level of the tax multiplier.
By contrast, because the league subsidizes contracts signed for one year at the minimum scale, Wade accepting the $2.4 million minimum for a player of his tenure would cost the Heat an overall outlay of about $3.8 million for 2018-19.
In addition, a smaller contract for Wade could make it easier for the Heat to get out of the tax by season’s end, when the tax is formally calculated, as the team did in 2015-16 with the moves that involved Mario Chalmers and Chris Andersen, among others. Such maneuvering would take the Heat off the clock on the punitive repeater tax.
“I don’t think this is about negotiating a midlevel or dollars,” Riley said. “It’s about getting Dwyane back. It’s not really about the tax right now. Even though we have a tax situation, we’ll work our way around that.
“All the business aspects of the tax and the cap, that’s all part of the equation, but let’s get the team together.” Riley’s new timetable? “Let’s wait ’til after Labor Day,” he said. “I think that’s always sort of the dropdead date for players.”
Riley was less specific about the team’s timing with forward Justise Winslow, who is eligible for a rookie-scale extension.
“I think there’s some timing issues there,” he said. “But we’re committed to Justise. He’s committed to us. And we have until Oct. 15 to make that decision. But we’ve been in constant communication with his agent and with Justise.”
The Heat did not finalize last year’s contract extension with Josh Richardson until Sept. 13, leaving time for clarity with a Winslow decision before the start of training camp. Should the Oct. 15 deadline not produce a deal, negotiations would be tabled until next summer.
Since Riley last addressed the media last month, the Heat have added several players to their training camp roster, including former Heat players Briante Weber and Jarnell Stokes, as well as undrafted rookies Malik Newman and Marcus Lee.
“I think teams are committed to 11 or 12 players that are going to play or be part of your rotation, take up spots when players get injured,” Riley said. “The other five guys are going to be two-way players or what we call Ex-10 players [players with minimal deals who can be funneled to developmental-league affiliates].
“So we’re stocking our G League team with youth, with guys that can play, that we can fill out our team in Sioux Falls.”