Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
McGruder’s contract picked up, keeping him off market
The Miami Heat moved forward Saturday with their plan to pick up the $1.5 million 2018-19 guarantee on the contract of swingman Rodney McGruder, a decision required before Sunday’s start of NBA free agency.
Midnight was set as the timing of the guarantee, when, without action from either party, the salary would be locked into the Heat’s payroll and McGruder’s bank account.
The only way such plans would change would be an 11th-hour trade, with McGruder’s contract needed to facilitate a move, which a party aware of the process said is highly unlikely.
Following a breakout rookie season in 2016-17, McGruder was sidelined by a preseason leg injury, not returning from surgery until Feb. 27. He then appeared in 19 games, including two starts, averaging 5.1 points on .493 shooting from the field and an encouraging .429 on 3-pointers.
Unable to regain a foothold in the rotation, McGruder played just 16 minutes in the Heat’s five-game first-round loss to the Philadelphia 76ers, with Dwyane Wade by then entrenched in the Heat rotation amid his return.
McGruder finished 2016-17 as the Heat’s starting small forward, a role that went to Josh Richardson this past season.
McGruder’s guarantee gives the Heat 10 players under contract for next season: McGruder, Richardson, Goran Dragic, Dion Waiters, Tyler Johnson, Hassan Whiteside, James Johnson, Kelly Olynyk, Justise Winslow and Bam Adebayo. The other five players from the Heat’s 2017-18 season-ending
roster are impending free agents: Wade, Udonis Haslem, Wayne Ellington, Luke Babbitt and Jordan Mickey. In addition, the Heat have extended a qualifying offers to guard Derrick Jones Jr. and Derrick Walton Jr., who both finished the season on twoway contracts.
Coach Erik Spoelstra said at season’s end that the Heat would be cautious this offseason with McGruder, while also stressing the significance McGruder has on the roster.
“That’s a story line that will never get out,” Spoelstra said of being without a glue component of his rotation for so long this past season, especially on the defensive end. “But Rodney was on his way. He was probably the most productive player in training camp and through the beginning of preseason — and he had basically 80 percent of his regular season taken away from him and then a totally different role than probably he anticipated and probably what he certainly was going to earn based on his offseason and the beginning of the season.
“But that’s just the way it goes. But we know how to manage that.”
McGruder said he will return to next season’s camp with the same hunger, albeit with a better appreciation of how, at 26, to best to take of his body.
“It added fuel to the fire,” he said. “I had a whole season taken away. So just be smarter in the things that I do this summer in my workouts and not put the stress on my body but also try to protect my craft. I have been talking to the organization, even my family about just trying to be smart.”