LeBron films ad as Miami makes moves
The Miami Heat’s first moves of NBA free agency did not involve the team’s Big Three but could be part of Pat Riley’s master plan to hold things together.
Charlotte Hornets power forward Josh McRoberts, a first-round playoff thorn of the Heat this past season who is known for his outside shooting and play-making, agreed to terms for the Heat’s mid-level exception.
Los Angeles Clippers swingman Danny Granger also joined the Heat with a deal at the NBA’s bi-annual exception. Granger provides the Heat with wing depth, which had been lacking at times this past season.
Agent Mike Conley Sr. confirmed the four-year $ 23- million agreement, with the contract including a player option in the fourth year.
Riley later confirmed the intention to sign both McRoberts and Granger,
with the Heat not releasing contract details.
Granger’s deal is for two years starting at $2.1million for this coming season, with a player option on the second year. He finished last season with the Clippers in a limited role after being dealt earlier in the season by the Indiana Pacers to the Philadelphia 76ers and then released. He arrives having only appearing in 46 games over the past two seasons due to knee and other health issues.
The moves come after Riley’s recent pursuit of larger- scale free agents such as Trevor Ariza, Pau Gasol and Luol Deng, an indication that Riley will attempt to retain his core of LeBron James, Chris Bosh and Dwyane Wade by adding a series of complementary pieces.
James is scheduled to meet with Riley soon to sort out his free agency. James spent Monday filming a commercial in Miami, with his next stop his basketball camp in Las Vegas.
Monday largely was filled with conjecture about the possibilities of James returning to play for the Cleveland Cavaliers, the team he left in July 2010 to join Bosh and Wade with the Heat, winning NBA titles with the two in 2012 and 2013.
The Heat have advanced to the NBA Finals in all four seasons with James, Bosh and Wade.
Conley said therewas no guarantee from the Heat that McRoberts would be playing with the Heat’s stars this season, but he said it was part of his client’s expectation.
“Obviously we did it with the hope that enough of them will be there,” he said. “That doesn’t mean we did it with the expectation that all would come back.”
Amid the latest round of maneuvering by the Heat were multiple media reports of Bosh covering himself with a fallback option of a maximum-level contract with the Houston Rockets should James leave the Heat.
With the McRoberts and Granger deals, which cannot be finalized until Thursday’s start of the freeagency signing period, the Heat decided to attack free agency through the use of salary-cap exceptions, instead of cobbling together one larger sum for a single major addition.
Beyond the $5.3 million starting point for McRoberts for 2014-15 and the $ 2.1 million salary for Granger this coming season, the Heat also hold a $2.2 million trade exception, as well as Bird Rights to pay competitive wages to incumbent free agents such as Ray Allen, Chris Andersen, Mario Chalmers and Rashard Lewis, perhaps even Greg Oden.
In addition to McRoberts and Granger, the Heat also have had talks with lower- level free agents such as Anthony Morrow and Marvin Williams, among others.
By utilizing salary-cap exceptions, and by not using the type of salary-cap space thatwould have been needed for the free-agency likes of Kyle Lowry or Marcin Gortat, who since have agreed to terms with their previous teams, the Heat also have greater flexibility to meet the salary demands of James, Bosh and Wade.
As for McRoberts and Granger, both had been involved in playoff skirmishes with the Heat in recent seasons, including McRoberts being fined $20,000 by the NBA for a hard foul against James in the second game of this year’s playoffs.