South Florida Sun-Sentinel Palm Beach (Sunday)
Heat can’t cap future with other options available
Cap space. Cap space. Cap space.
Over and over and over.
As if it is the only way to rebuild or fortify in the NBA.
And now this, the reality that the new coronavirus pandemic is likely to change everything assumed about the Miami Heat’s future when it was going to be as simple as loading up with 2021 cap space and then reeling (or, to use Pat Riley parlance, harpooning) in Giannis Antetokounmpo, Victor Oladipo or some other prime piece that could be available in July 2021.
The initial projection, in advance of the pandemic and resulting economic strain, was a $125 million salary cap for 2021-22 payrolls.
Now, without the NBA “smoothing” the cap over coming seasons to minimize the impact of the current economic climate, former Memphis Grizzlies executive John Hollinger wrote for The Athletic about a consensus of NBA number crunchers of something along the lines of a ’21-22 cap of $110 million. Even with smoothing, he offered a consensus projection of $112 million.
Similarly, the initial projection for this coming offseason was a $116 million cap, with Hollinger drawing a league consensus closer to $85 million “unsmoothed” or $109 million “smoothed.”
In other words, banking on cap space is starting to look like a low(no?-) return investment.
For this coming offseason, the Heat’s potential cap space was illusory. Yes, there initially could have been upwards of $27 million in space, but that likely would have meant moving on from Goran Dragic, Jae Crowder, Meyers Leonard and possibly Derrick Jones Jr.
And for what? Little is worth targeting this offseason if, as expected, Anthony Davis remains with the Lakers (with all due respect to impending free agents Danilo Gallinari and Paul Millsap).
But if 2021 cap space still remains the Heat priority, it no longer might be as simple as just bringing back Dragic, Crowder, Leonard and Jones on one-year deals. As this moment has shown, there are no guarantees when it comes to future cap space.
But there is another way, in many ways The Heat Way.
A few years back, when asked about concerns about future cap space, a Heat executive began shaking his head, stressing, “It’s not just about cap space.”
Because as the Heat have shown, you also can make it work with money on the books.
Alonzo Mourning? Acquired by trade.
Tim Hardaway? By trade. Shaquille O’Neal? By trade. Antoine Walker, Jason Williams, James Posey? By the same trade.
Dragic? By trade.
Jimmy Butler? By trade, when the Heat didn’t have a nickel in cap space to their name.
Andre Iguodala and Crowder? By trade.
(LeBron James and Chris Bosh were acquired by sign-and-trade, but that only was because the Heat had the threat of ample cap space.)
So here’s another thought on the (cap)-space race: Collect assets instead.
Recall, there was a point after signing Dion Waiters and James Johnson in 2017 that Riley believed, at worst, they could become tradeable assets at the ends of their deals. And while that did prove to be the case, it only was by being forced to add the sweetener of Justise Winslow.
All of which takes us to the 2021 offseason.
If the Heat retain Dragic, Crowder, Leonard and Jones on deals beyond a single season, they ultimately could turn into trade chips, just as Josh Richardson was for Butler after signing his Heat multiyear extension.
Unlike a waiting game on cap space, by the Heat bringing the gang back there would be ample trade chips that could be put into play on a dollar-by-dollar basis, pieces that not only could be in play for free agents in sign-and-trades but anywhere on the trade market.
While the Heat might not be willing to budge with Bam Adebayo, Butler or perhaps Tyler Herro, there still would be ample chips for Riley and Andy Elisburg to maneuver, similar to when Caron Butler, Lamar Odom and Brian Grant turned into Shaq. Those chips could include a re-signed Dragic, Crowder, Leonard or Jones; the emerged youth of Kendrick Nunn or Duncan Robinson; or the still-to-be-developed skills of Chris Silva, KZ Okpala or the Heat’s 2020 first-round pick.
Lament, if you must, about uncertain future cap space. Or collect chips for the moment to go all-in on the trade market, as Riley has done before.
IN THE LANE
THE RILEY-JORDAN STORY: While Heat President Pat Riley had only a cameo in “The Last Dance,” the director of the 10-part ESPN documentary, Jason Hehir, said there was one anecdote from Riley about
Michael Jordan that was worth retelling, even though it landed on the cutting-room floor.
Hehir, on the “Pushin’ Thru” podcast, said: “It was after ’92 or ’93, and they’re in Hawaii. And Riley is staying in this Presidential Suite at this gorgeous resort in Hawaii. The manager calls him up and says, ‘Mr. Riley, you have to clear your things out of the Presidential Suite. We had an unexpected guest and we had to move you out.’
“And he’s saying, ‘What?’ They said, ‘We’ll give you these three other rooms. They’re beautiful rooms. We’ll spread you out and we’ll relocate everything for you, but we have to do this.’ He said, ‘All right.’ So he goes down to the pool and the staff comes up and moves all his stuff out and he’s
hanging out at the pool and he looks up at the balcony and Michael is on the balcony — his balcony — waving to him, from his original room. That’s Air Jordan.”
It’s all true, with Jordan referencing the Hawaii hotel in his 2009 induction speech at the Basketball Hall of Fame, nodding to Riley: “You were in my suite.” Riley wound up sliding a note under Jordan’s door in Hawaii that read, “I enjoyed the competition, congratulations. But we will meet again.”
THE BUTLER COMPARISON:
Then there’s former Heat forward Caron Butler comparing a young Dwyane Wade to the tenacity that Jordan brought to the Bulls and NBA.
“We knew he was special immediately when he came in,” Butler told the “Battle for LA” podcast of spending 2003-04 with the Heat during Wade’s rookie season. “You’ve seen the story of Michael Jordan and how, when Jordan came in, he was itching and fighting to be the best on the team immediately, and he said he attacked the best player on the team. It was no different with Dwyane Wade.”
Butler, who spent that lone season alongside Wade, added: “Once he came onto the scene, people knew that he was ‘it.’ Whatever ‘it’ is, he had ‘it.’ ”
TWO ON ONE: With nostalgia seizing the moment in the absence of games, it allowed Shaquille O’Neal and Gary Payton, Heat championship teammates in 2005-06 under Riley, to share their own Riley story last week during Ahmad Rashad’s
“NBA Inside Stuff 90s Reunion” (sanitized for your reading pleasure).
“You know why I love GP?” O’Neal asked during the group video chat. “Because when I first got to Miami and Pat was calling all these plays, he was yelling at GP. GP is like, ‘Man [bleep] that [bleep]. I’m throwing that mother[bleeper] to Shaq. I don’t give a
[bleep] what you say.”
O’Neal then referenced another Payton-Riley moment.
“I had a fight with Pat Riley,” he said. “Gary Payton had to grab me from choking Pat Riley.” That’s when Payton chimed in during the video chat with, “You was going to choke him out too, boy.”
FUTURE THOUGHT: If the NBA plan was to go straight to playoffs, it would have been 76ers-Celtics in the first round. But with the likelihood of additional regular-season games, Philadelphia coach Brett Brown said his staff has utilized the shutdown to prepare for all possibilities, including a second opening-round series against the Heat in three years.
“After we completed [the self-scout], in the bullpen we have Toronto, Miami and Boston good to go,” Brown said, according to The Athletic. “We’ve taken significant studies on what that ultimately is going to look like. It’s a combination of both analytic work and video work. Some of it’s just gut-feel work from our coaches and me of things that we’re going to have to do to play one of those few teams.”
NUMBER
5. Regular-season games the 41-24 Heat would have remaining if, as speculated, the NBA shortens the 2019-20 season to 70 games. Such an approach would mean the Heat, currently seeded No. 4, could move up as high as No. 3 in the East (2 1⁄ games
2 behind Boston) or as low as No. 6 (two games ahead of both No. 5 Indiana and No. 6 Philadelphia).
While homecourt likely would not be a factor, with neutral-site games the expectation, it could impact playoff opponent, with the Heat currently seeded to face the Pacers but with the possibility of instead facing the Celtics or 76ers in the opening round.