Mailbag: If not Anthony Davis, then what for the Miami Heat?
The weekly Miami Herald Heat mailbag is here to answer your questions.
If you weren’t able to ask one this time, send your questions for future mailbags via Twitter (@Anthony_Chiang). You can also email me at achiang@miamiherald.com.
@iamtzamac: Go for Anthony Davis, clear all the assets, or go for salary dumps and wait for free agency and draft this offseason?
Anthony Chiang: I have bad news for you, both seem unlikely at this point.
The Heat is a long shot in the Anthony Davis sweepstakes, and it’s also projected to have no cap space to use in free agency this upcoming summer. The Heat already has $135.2 million committed to 10 players for next season. That’s well above next season’s projected $109 million salary cap and also above the projected $132 million luxury tax threshold.
So you’re asking, shouldn’t the Heat trade for expiring contracts to create space? To do that, Miami has to shed about $26 million just to get under the projected cap right now. That’s going to be really hard to do, nearly impossible actually, without including young assets like Bam Adebayo, Josh Richardson or Justise Winslow in deals as sweeteners for teams just to be willing to take on some of Miami’s bigger contracts. And to make all of this really worth it, the Heat would have to create a substantial amount of cap space to use in free agency this year. So that means trying to shed at least $40 million to $50 million in the next six months. That’s … hard to do.
In other words, a trade is the only realistic way for the Heat to land an established star this year. The Davis scenario is worth exploring because he’s one of the NBA’s best young players, but Miami is not the favorite for various reasons (explained here by the Miami Herald’s Barry Jackson) and is hardly being mentioned as a team with a chance to acquire Davis. The Lakers look to be the front-runners right now, as a LeBron James-Davis pairing has seemed inevitable for months.
The more likely scenario is this: The Heat waits until the 2020 offseason when it will finally have cap space to work with. Miami currently has $72.2 million committed to six players for 2020-21, with the cap projected to be $118 million. That would give the Heat about $40 million plus that summer.
That’s only if Miami can’t pull off a trade before then, though. It might not be for Davis, but another disgruntled star will likely pop up between now and the summer of 2020. With building through free agency growing more difficult because of NBA rules that incentivize players who remain with their teams and impending free agents demanding trades before they actually hit the market, the trade route has become the more realistic option to land a big name.
@Daniel22223333 I am about to be 51 years old. Will the Miami Heat be back in championship contention before I am able to order from the Denny’s Senior Menu?
Anthony: Considering you can start ordering from the Denny’s Senior Menu at 55, that’s a tough question. I’ll say yes, only because the Heat is projected to have a good amount of cap space in 2020, and a ton of cap space in 2021 to use in free agency if it plans accordingly. And Golden State’s run has to be over by then, right?
This story was originally published January 29, 2019 at 9:38 AM.
