Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Buyout clock strikes 12
Heat still have some wiggle room to bolster roster for the playoffs
MIAMI — With Wednesday the NBA buyout deadline for playoff eligibility, the Miami Heat and the rest of the league now have market clarity.
The Heat also still have buying power.
Under league rules, players must be waived by March 1 in order to be eligible for another team’s playoff roster. They then can be signed with such playoff eligibility up to the April 9 end of the regular season.
Among those recently waived in order to have playoff eligibility elsewhere have been Chicago Bulls guard Goran Dragic and Detroit Pistons center Nerlens Noel.
Most of the prominent names on the buyout market already have moved on to spots in the playoff race, including Kevin Love with the Heat, Russell Westbrook with the Los Angeles Clippers, Reggie Jackson with the Denver Nuggets, Terrence Ross with the Phoenix Suns, Justin Holiday with the Dallas Mavericks, Danny Green with the Cleveland Cavaliers, Patrick Beverley with the Chicago Bulls, former Heat center Dewayne Dedmon with the Philadelphia 76ers and, most recently, Will Barton with the Toronto Raptors.
Among those bought out around the Feb. 9 NBA trading deadline who have yet to land elsewhere are John Wall, Serge Ibaka and Stanley Johnson.
There also is another subset of players who are not affected by the March 1 deadline regarding playoff eligibility, those who have not been in the NBA this season. The Heat went that route in adding Cody Zeller, with Carmelo Anthony and DeMarcus Cousins among those who remain on that market.
Where it remains interesting for the Heat is that the team has the salary-cap wherewithal under the luxury tax to add another player from the buyout market, but lacks an available roster spot.
In that regard, there would be three possible, buy not likely, paths for the Heat to open a roster spot.
Omer Yurtseven: The second-year center has yet to play this season, as he recovers from November ankle surgery.
Should the Heat opt against planning to extend the $2.2 million qualifying offer to make Yurtseven a restricted free agent, they could opt to open a roster spot.
Such a move, however, would then eliminate the Heat’s earlyBird Rights to Yurtseven. Haywood Highsmith: Highsmith, who has fallen out of the rotation as the Heat roster has grown healthier, is under a non-guaranteed contract for one more season, at $1.9 million in 2023-24.
For a team that will be operating into the luxury tax, such a bargain contract might prove too tempting to bypass merely to add a buyout player for the balance of this season.
Highsmith’s 2023-24 salary does not become guaranteed until July 15.
Udonis Haslem: In his 20th season, the 42-year-old Heat captain has said this will be his last.
It is unfathomable that the Heat would even broach the subject with a franchise icon, even with the veteran big man limited to 47 minutes over six appearances this season.
Altered assignments
The Heat on Wednesday veered from the initial plan of sending both Yurtseven and rookie big man Nikola Jovic to the G League for rehabilitation assignments with the Sioux Falls Skyforce.
While Yurtseven moved on to South Dakota as planned, the Heat deemed Jovic, 19, not sufficiently recovered from the lower-back stress reaction that has the No. 27 pick in last June’s NBA draft sidelined since Dec. 28.
The Sioux Falls Skyforce, who are coming off Tuesday’s 107-99 victory over the Oklahoma City Blue, are idle until Friday and Saturday home games against the Minnesota’s Timberwolves’ affiliate.
Already with the Skyforce is two-way forward Jamal Cain, who now has enough remaining NBA days on his two-way contract that he is eligible to be on the Heat roster for the remainder of the regular season.
Recently released guard Jamaree Bouyea also is with the Skyforce.
Tucker returns
With Wednesday night’s game against the visiting 76ers the first appearance for veteran power forward P.J. Tucker in Miami since he left the Heat in free agency in July, Heat guard Max Strus reflected on one of the leading men to the Heat’s run within one game of last season’s NBA Finals.
“Tuck’s the man, just the way he communicates, the way he plays the game,” Strus said. “It’s just easy to play with him. He’s so fun to play with. He just plays the game the right way. That’s the most respect I can give him, is that everything he does is the right way. So he makes it easier for you.
“He makes other people around him better and he does all the tough things that nobody else wants to do.”