Pat Riley on the Heat’s empty roster spot, Bam Adebayo’s improvement, P.J. Tucker and more
The Miami Heat will begin the season with one empty roster spot, but team president Pat Riley did not rule out filling it at some point.
After finalizing its roster by waiving four developmental prospects on Friday, the Heat will enter Thursday’s season opener against the Milwaukee Bucks at FTX Arena with 14 players on standard contracts — one below the NBA limit — to narrowly avoid crossing the luxury tax threshold. Miami also filled both of its two-way contract spots, with those deals not counting toward the salary cap or luxury tax.
“I think you have to prove first that you’re the kind of team that can play at that level and then you can make that investment,” Riley said Tuesday from FTX Arena in his first press conference since his annual postseason meeting with reporters in June. “So obviously we’re a team that has paid the tax. We’re a team that always believes in that we’re going to compete and we’re going to win, and the season isn’t over with yet. So we can jump in there if we have to, if something happens that’s going to make us better.”
The Heat stands about $400,000 away from the tax threshold and signing a free agent to fill the final spot on its 15-man roster would take it over the line. The penalty to add a veteran with a minimum contract at this point would be a tax bill of about $1.8 million.
But the bigger concern is the threat of a punitive repeater tax (when a team is over the tax at least three times over a four-year period) looming. The Heat finished the 2019-20 season as a tax team, and it will be difficult to avoid the tax in future seasons with the expensive salaries of Bam Adebayo, Jimmy Butler, Kyle Lowry and Duncan Robinson on its books and Tyler Herro eligible to sign an extension this upcoming offseason.
“Paying up to the tax, it has never been a mandate but it’s been always on my mind,” Riley said. “I’m not going to just say, OK, every year we’re going to go into the tax and we don’t win and Micky [Arison] is writing these big checks. I don’t think that’s fair. But when we have a real contender, which I think we have, then we’ll entertain that and I think we’ll entertain it this year, too.”
It is possible for the Heat to add a 15th player and avoid the luxury tax. But that signing won’t be able to come until later in the season, likely around March when the prorated minimum salary is about $400,000.
Another incentive to avoid crossing the luxury tax threshold: The non-tax paying teams get some of the money paid out by the tax-paying teams. ESPN’s Bobby Marks estimates that the non-tax teams would each get about $12.7 million, as it stands now.
“In order to give up that kind of revenue, you better make sure that if you’re going to to go in, you’re not just going to go in and not make the playoffs or not get through the first round or something,” Riley said. “But we’ve talked a lot about it and we would be ready to make a move if we have to. But let’s get through the first 20 games and see where we are in the first 20 games. Because it’s going to be challenging just from the start with our schedule.”
Here are other topics Riley addressed during his 38-minute session with reporters on Tuesday:
▪ Riley said Adebayo is “extraordinarily better than last year across the board in how Erik [Spoelstra’ wants to use him.”
“There was a time last year where there was an in between on him making decisions based on being a ball handler or a shooter,” Riley added. “I think you might see just a flat-out scorer this year with the ability to be able to make plays.”
▪ Riley made reference to the Heat’s challenging early-season schedule a few times during the press conference, with 13 of the first 20 games coming on the road.
“We have a very challenging start, so conditioning is going to be very important, efficiency is going to be important,” he said. “Last year, we started 7-14 and got ourselves into a hole, but that was COVID related more than anything else and quarantining. So we have to somehow get off to a good start with this challenging schedule.”
▪ Riley noted there will be games that Lowry will need to play as a scorer and other games that he’ll be more of a facilitator.
“It doesn’t make any difference to him, nor to me or Erik,” Riley continued. “As long as we’re winning a good percentage of our games, I think whatever Kyle does is going to be a plus.”
▪ Riley called last season’s first-round sweep at the the hands of the Bucks “awful.”
“We got our heads handed to us,” he said. “I don’t think one player played at their level, which they’re capable of. Milwaukee was just so dominant. ... They were just too big for us. They were big and they played really big and quick. We didn’t make the adjustment to that.”
▪ Riley compared the additions of Lowry, Markieff Morris and P.J. Tucker to “what we did with Shaquille [O’Neal] and Dwyane [Wade] in 2006 when we lost in six games to Detroit in Shaq’s first year.”
“I felt that we needed a little bit more medieval type of mentalities. Guys that have shields and swords and axes and stuff,” Riley joked.
▪ Riley: “There are times that I do believe now with Bam and with Dewayne [Dedmon], whether it’s Omer [Yurtseven], even Markieff and Bam together, that we can play with a little bit more size. But Spo is very aware of that. It’s something that I think as the season goes along, he’ll make those kinds of adjustments.”
▪ Riley gushed about Tucker, who he said has been “three times more than what I thought he was.”
“He’s one of the most unselfish players that I’ve ever been around from that context,” Riley said. “He just wants to win. He’s going to do what he can do to help win. From a defensive standpoint, playing guys. He can play big guys, he can play small guys, he can play post-up guys. He’s really a complete defender.”
▪ The Heat said before the press conference that Riley would not answer questions on the NBA’s ongoing investigation regarding potential tampering over its sign-and-trade acquisition of Lowry. The investigation was opened in early August.
▪ As for practice attendance, Dedmon and Morris remained away from the team for Tuesday’s practice because of cold-like symptoms. Forward Udonis Haslem was back at practice after missing Monday’s session.
This story was originally published October 19, 2021 at 2:43 PM.
