Heat extends qualifying offers to Nunn, Robinson, Strus, Vincent. Here’s what it means
The Miami Heat has a few decisions to make before free agency opens Monday at 6 p.m., and it made an unsurprising one on Friday.
As expected, the Heat extended $4.7 million qualifying offers to both guard Kendrick Nunn and forward Duncan Robinson. The move makes Nunn and Robinson restricted free agents and allows Miami to match offers from other teams this offseason.
The Heat also extended smaller qualifying offers to wing Max Strus and guard Gabe Vincent, who were Miami’s two-way contract players last season. The qualifying offers to Strus and Vincent could again turn into two-way deals unless the Heat is forced to match standard contract offers they receive as restricted free agents.
Since Vincent spent the past two seasons as a two-way contract player with the Heat, his qualifying offer is for a standard NBA contract at the minimum salary and comes with an $84,000 guarantee. Strus’ qualifying offer is for another two-way deal with a $50,000 guarantee. But both offers could still result in them playing under two-way contracts with the Heat next season.
The Heat had until 11:59 p.m. on Sunday to extend the qualifying offers. The Heat’s front office still needs to make a decision on the team options in the contracts of Goran Dragic ($19.4 million team option), Andre Iguodala ($15 million team option) and Omer Yurtseven ($1.5 million, but still non-guaranteed) by 5 p.m. on Sunday.
What does the qualifying offer mean for the Heat’s chances at retaining Nunn and Robinson? If Miami had not extended the qualifying offer by the Sunday deadline, Nunn and Robinson would have become unrestricted free agents and the Heat would not have had the right to match outside offers.
Nunn, 25, and Robinson, 27, now both carry $4.7 million holds. The Heat holds Bird rights for both players, so it can exceed the salary cap to re-sign them up to their maximum salary and they would only count $4.7 million against the team’s cap.
The Heat could also still opt to pull Nunn and/or Robinson’s qualifying offer if it needs additional cap space during free agency. This move would decrease their cap holds from $4.7 million to $1.7 million to carve out an extra $3 million in space for each player but make them unrestricted free agents. The Heat would likely only do this if it chose to operate as a room team and had a prearranged deal agreed upon to re-sign them after the Heat uses its cap space on another free agent.
If the Heat chooses to work with cap space instead of operating as an over-the-cap team, it would have about $21 million in space with Nunn and Robinson each carrying $4.7 million cap holds. Miami would have about $27 million in space if it opts to pull both of their qualifying offers to cut their cap holds to $1.7 million.
If the Heat decides to only pull one of the two qualifying offers, Miami’s cap space would stand at about $24 million if it chooses to enter free agency as a room team.
Nunn and Robinson, who both signed with the Heat as undrafted free agents, are due for sizable pay raises this summer after playing on a $1.7 million salary this past season.
The Athletic’s John Hollinger, who is a former Memphis Grizzlies executive, projects that Nunn is worth a contract with a salary of $11.5 million for this upcoming season.
“Miami’s guard presents an interesting case because his cap hold is only [$4.7 million], thus giving the Heat a fairly strong incentive to use the rest of their cap room and then re-sign Kendrick Nunn,” Hollinger wrote. “On the other hand, one of the Heat’s primary targets is likely [Kyle] Lowry, and it would seemingly make little sense to pay Nunn starter-level money to be his caddy; using cap space and then paying both Nunn and Duncan Robinson (who has the same low cap hold) could also vault Miami into the luxury tax.”
Hollinger projects that Robinson is worth a contract with a $23.9 million salary for this upcoming season. But Hollinger went on to write that “he’s not a high-usage shot creator and not an NBA Defensive Player of the Year candidate, so paying him in the 20s is probably excessive.”
Comparable players to Robinson such as Brooklyn Nets sharpshooter Joe Harris signed a four-year, $75 million contract and Washington Wizards three-point specialist Davis Bertans signed a five-year, $80 million as free agents last offseason.
“Miami has a strong incentive to re-sign Robinson at any number,” Hollinger continued. “The interesting wrinkle with Robinson’s free agency is that he only counts $4.7 million against the Heat’s cap. As a result, the Heat can use their $24 million or so in cap room on another player and then come back and re-sign Robinson once they’ve used their room.”
Nunn, who was signed by the Heat on the final day of the 2018-19 regular season, finished second in the voting for the NBA’s Rookie of the Year honor and was named to the All-Rookie first team in 2019-20.
Nunn averaged 14.6 points while shooting 48.5 percent from the field and 38.1 percent on threes, 3.2 rebounds and 2.6 assists in 56 games (44 starts) this past regular season. In the playoffs, Nunn averaged 10.3 points on 39.5 percent shooting from the field and 5-of-18 shooting on threes, 1.5 rebounds and 1.5 assists.
Nunn became a more efficient offensive player this past season and he has proven to be a consistent scorer at the NBA level, but he’s still improving as a facilitator and perimeter defender.
Robinson, a 6-7 forward, has quickly earned the reputation as one of the NBA’s top shooters after spending most of his rookie season in the G League. In the past two regular seasons combined, only Sacramento’s Buddy Hield (553) and Portland’s Damian Lillard (545) have totaled more made three-pointers than Robinson (520).
Robinson was the only Heat player to appear in all 72 games this past regular season. He closed the regular season with the fourth-most made threes in the NBA at 250 behind Lillard (275), Hield (282) and Golden State’s Stephen Curry (337), and shot 40.8 percent on 8.5 three-point attempts per game.
This comes after Robinson set a Heat record for threes made (270) in a single season in 2019-20, while also joining Curry as the only two players in league history to finish a season with 270 or more made threes while shooting better than 44 percent from deep.
The Heat is expected to make a hard push in an attempt to re-sign Robinson, as his outside shooting has become an important part of the team’s offense. But there is more question with Nunn, who could receive offers that price him out of Miami’s range especially if the Heat signs an outside free agent at his position like Lowry.
The Heat is on track to enter free agency with just five players who have guaranteed salaries for next season that total $72.6 million: Jimmy Butler ($36 million), Bam Adebayo ($28.1 million), Tyler Herro ($4 million), Precious Achiuwa ($2.7 million) and KZ Okpala ($1.8 million).
That means there are 12 players from Miami’s season-ending roster who could become free agents this summer: Trevor Ariza, Nemanja Bjelica, Dewayne Dedmon, Udonis Haslem, Nunn (restricted), Victor Oladipo, Robinson (restricted), Strus (restricted) and Vincent (restricted). Also, Dragic, Iguodala and Yurtseven have team options in their contracts that the Heat must decide on by Sunday.
Next season’s salary cap and luxury tax line have not finalized yet, but projections indicate the salary cap will be about $112.4 million and the luxury-tax threshold will be about $136.6 million. Miami also has a $5.2 million waive-and-stretch cap hit for Ryan Anderson still on its books.
As previously mentioned, the Heat is expected to have between $21 million and $27 million in cap space this summer, including cap holds, unless it opts to move forward as an over-the-cap team and leverage the Bird rights of its own free agents to bring back some players from this past season’s roster.
The 2021 free agent class could be headlined by Mike Conley, Kawhi Leonard, Lowry and Chris Paul. Free agents can’t sign their new contracts until Aug. 6.
This story was originally published July 30, 2021 at 6:38 PM.
