Deadline looming
Heat watching for decisions by Dwyane Wade and Luol Deng.
MIAMI — For the rest of the NBA, what matters most will begin to matter at12:01a.m. Wednesday, when the latest free-agency free-for-all begins.
For the Miami Heat, the clock-watching will begin 24 hours earlier.
While Pat Riley said last week that the team’s most important offseason work will begin July 1, there still remains the matter of the midnight Monday optin deadlines with guard Dwyane Wade and forward Luol Deng.
Wade seemingly made his timeframe clear during his initial appearance on ABC as an NBA Finals analyst, when he said, “we’ll worry about that in July.”
Amid the expectation of guard Goran Dragic quickly resolving his free-agent status with the team, for the Heat to have any tangible salary-cap space without first thinning the roster through trades, both Wade and Deng would have to bypass their opt-ins and sign elsewhere.
Otherwise, the Heat will likely enter the offseason with the option of utilizing one of the two mid-level exceptions available to teams working at or near the projected 2015-16 salary cap of $67.1 million.
While the Heat would be allowed to spend the full $5.5 million mid-level exception, that also would mean spending the entire 2015-16 season under a hard cap. More likely would be the Heat limiting themselves to the
$3.4 million taxpayer midlevel.
Dragic allowed his opt-in deadline to pass last week, with Riley immediately expressing optimism of a resolution that would return the guard acquired at the Feb. 19 NBA trading deadline. Based on the latest word around the league, Dragic is expected to be offered a fiveyear deal that starts in the $17 million range, for a package worth approximately $97 million.
The Heat also had until midnight Monday to decide whether to invoke their 2015-16 option to guarantee the contract of forward Michael Beasley, but let him know over the weekend they would bypass that commitment, making him a free agent.
By rule, the Heat are banned from discussing specific free-agent contract terms with Dragic, Wade or Deng until 12:01 a.m. Wednesday.
“There hasn’t been any real discussions about anything, because that can’t take place and won’t take place until 12:01 on July the first,” Riley said following Thursday’s NBA draft. “We’ll find that out on July the first, and then we’re going to have eight or nine days to deal with it. I mean, before that, it really is all speculation.”
The NBA personnel moratorium, the period when the league allows free-agent negotiations but bans signings or trades as the upcoming salary cap is finalized, runs this year from July 1 to July 8. The first day signings or trades are allowed is July 9. The moratorium will run concurrently with most of the Heat’s play at the Orlando summer league.
“We now move on to phase two,” Riley said. “We get on to that free-agent list besides our own, take care of our own guys that we have to plan for, and, then, there’s some other opportunities, also, to continue to retool this team. That’s what this whole thing is about.”
With a power rotation that already includes Hassan Whiteside, Chris Bosh, Josh McRoberts, Chris Andersen and Udonis Haslem, and with point guard covered with Dragic, Mario Chalmers and Shabazz Napier the Heat are expected to fo- cus on the wing in free agency.
Among potential fits in the Heat’s expected mid-level range, especially with the team’s current lack of 3-point shooting, could be Mike Dunleavy Jr., Gerald Green, Dorell Wright, Caron Butler, Wesley Johnson, Gary Neal, Marco Belinelli, James Jones, Rodney Stuckey, Wayne Ellington and Luigi Datome.
Riley has stressed that the Heat’s own free agents will be the initial priority.
“First of all, on July the first, we need to make contact, we need to sit down, like you do in every free agency, and come to some kind of agreement,” he said. “That’s what’s going to have to happen. Until that time comes, we still don’t know what’s going to happen
“We’ll sit down and get into a room with ’em. We’re very familiar with ’em, they’re familiar with us. I do believe they love Miami, they love this franchise, and we can try to make a deal. That’s what this is about.”