Heat’s hopes dim
Move reduces Heat’s chance of landing forward in free agency
James’ contract move makes Miami return unlikely.
With Friday’s move, it makes it more likely that James signs with a team with ample salary space.
With LeBron James on Friday formally deciding against opting into the final year of his Cleveland Cavaliers contract, the chance of the MiamiHeat creating a 2018-19 reunion with the All-Star forward has been significantly, if not completely, diminished.
James, who left theHeat to return home to Cleveland in 2014 free agency, had until Friday night to decide whether to opt into his $35.6 million 2018-19 salary with the Cavaliers.
Under such a scenario, James could then have worked out a trade to another team without the complexities of the type of signand-trade agreement that now will be required after Sunday’s start of NBA free agency.
With Friday’s move, it makes it more likely that James signs with a team with ample salary-space, such as the Los Angeles Lakers or Philadelphia 76ers, or returns to the Cavaliers. It significantly reduces the possibility of a sign-and-trade move to the Heat orHouston Rockets, who at one point had been considered a leading suitor based on James’ friendship with Chris Paul.
Amid their current lack of any available cap space, the only way for the Heat to acquire James would be a sign-and-trade agreement that would be subject to the approval of both James and the Cavaliers.
Even then there would be a substantial hurdle.
A team that receives a player in a signandtransaction is automatically locked into a hard cap, with that payroll limit expected to fall at about $129 million
for 2018-19.
The Heat, who have never operated under a hard cap, already have $119 million in salary commitments for next season, a figure that does not include impending free agentsWayne Ellington and DwyaneWade.
As with any trades, the Heat would have to come up with contracts within 25 percent of James’ $35.4 million for next season. Such maneuvering would leave them teetering at the hardcap limit.
Beyond the math, there has been no significant indication of a desire of a return by James, who led the Heat to four NBA Finals while with the team from 2010 to 2014, with championships in 2012 and ’13.
In addition, due to the quality of components the Heat would have to send out in such a sign-and-trade bid for James — names ranging from Goran Dragic, Josh Richardson, Justise WinslowtoBamAdebayo— it could possibly leave James alongside talent in Miami no stronger than the group he would leave behind in Cleveland.
Friday’s move by James leaves the Cavaliers, Lakers and 76ers as the likely leading suitors for James, based on available salary-cap space.
The Lakers and 76ers are eligible to extend a maximum offer of $152 million over four years to James. As James’ incumbent team, the Cavaliers can offer $207 million over five seasons.
TheNBAfree-agency negotiating period beginsSunday, with the free-agency signing period opening July 6.
Multiple outlets have reported that James is not planning on meeting directly with suitors, having met with only Heat PresidentPatRiley and theCavaliers prior to his 2014 decision.
The past few weeks had been rife with speculation about a James return to South Florida, including a recent visit amid his son’s basketball competition. There even had been socialmedia reports of James meeting with Riley and Heat coach Erik Spoelstra, conjecture that was inaccurate, with team officials expressly forbidden fromcontacting impending free agents prior to July 1.
Several sports books initially lowered the Heat’s odds for the 2019 NBA championship amid speculation of a possible James return to South Florida.
“When you have LeBron in free agency, you have to becareful,” WestgateSuperBook oddsmaker John Murray told ESPN at the time. “You’ve got Philadelphia, Miami, the Lakers and even Houston as potential destinations. We cut all of those teams’ odds down, and we’ll raise back up the teams he doesn’t sign with.”
There had been initial thought that James had burned bridges with his 2014 return to Cleveland, but Riley, in a current book by longtime NBA journalist Ian Thomsen, said that the championship forward “did the right thing” when he left theHeat.
In “The Soul of Basketball: The Epic Showdown between LeBron, Kobe, Doc and Dirk that Saved the NBA,” Riley said of James’ departure, “I just finally came to accept the realization that he and his family said, ‘You’ll never, ever be accepted back in your hometown if you don’t go back to try to win a title. Otherwise someday you’ll go back there and have the scarlet letter on your back. You’ll be the greatest player in the history of mankind, but back there, nobody’s really going to accept you.’ ”
Riley said in thebookthat it took a considerable period to get over James’ departure.
“I had two to three days of tremendous anger. I was absolutely livid, which I expressed to myself and my closest friends,” Riley said. “My beautiful plan all of a sudden came crashing down. That team in ten years couldhavewon five or six championships. But I get it. I get the whole chronicle of [LeBron’s] life.” iwinderman@sunsentinel .com or Twitter @iraheatbeat