How Duncan Robinson’s decision affects the Heat ahead of free agency and the factors at play
The NBA Draft is over, but the busy part of the offseason is just beginning. Most contract options around the NBA need to be decided on by Sunday and free agency opens around the league on Monday.
The Heat already addressed all of the options that it needed to decide on before free agency — exercising the $2 million team option in forward Keshad Johnson’s contract to guarantee his salary for this upcoming season, and extending qualifying offers to guards Davion Mitchell ($8.7 million qualifying offer) and Dru Smith (two-way contract qualifying offer) to make them both restricted free agents.
Mitchell even agreed to a new contract worth $24 million over two seasons to return to the Heat ahead of Monday’s start of league-wide free-agent negotiations, league sources confirmed to the Miami Herald on Saturday. The contract does not include any options, with the money fully guaranteed.
But there is one contract option that is out of the Heat’s control. Instead, three-point shooting forward Duncan Robinson is the one with a decision to make before Sunday’s deadline.
Robinson has until Sunday at 5 p.m. to exercise the early-termination option in his contract for next season. No formal decision has been made yet on the option as of Saturday morning, according to a league source.
By exercising the early-termination option, Robinson would immediately become an unrestricted free agent and his $19.9 million salary for this upcoming season would come off the Heat’s books.
But if Robinson simply allows Sunday’s deadline to pass without exercising the early-termination option, he would remain on the Heat’s roster and $9.9 million of his $19.9 million salary for next season would become guaranteed.
If Robinson bypasses the early-termination option in his contract, as expected, the Heat would then have until July 8 to decide on whether to guarantee his full salary for next season. The final $10 million of Robinson’s $19.9 salary would become guaranteed if he’s still on the Heat’s roster after July 8.
Robinson, 31, has developed into one of the Heat’s undrafted success stories. He joined the Heat after going undrafted out of Michigan in 2018, becoming the franchise leader for the most career three-pointers made by a Heat player.
Robinson has made 1,202 three-pointers while shooting an impressive 39.7 percent from behind the arc during his seven regular seasons with the Heat. He’s one of only nine NBA players who has made more than 1,000 threes while shooting better than 39 percent from three-point range since the 2018-19 season, along with Stephen Curry, Buddy Hield, Malik Beasley, CJ McCollum, Paul George, Zach LaVine, Klay Thompson and Gary Trent Jr.
But Robinson’s role has diminished over the years. After starting in 209 of his 239 regular-season appearances over his first four NBA seasons with the Heat, he has started in 74 of his 184 regular-season appearances over the last three seasons.
Robinson averaged 11 points, 2.3 rebounds and 2.4 assists per game while shooting 43.7 percent from the field and 39.3 percent on 6.5 three-point attempts per game last regular season.
The Heat’s current salary-cap breakdown includes 14 players on standard contracts with partially guaranteed or fully guaranteed salaries for next season: Bam Adebayo ($37.1 million), Tyler Herro ($31 million), Andrew Wiggins ($28.2 million), Terry Rozier ($24.9 million of $26.6 million salary currently guaranteed), Mitchell ($11.5 million), Kyle Anderson ($9.2 million), Haywood Highsmith ($5.6 million), Nikola Jovic ($4.4 million), Kel’el Ware ($4.4 million), Kevin Love ($4.2 million), Jaime Jaquez Jr. ($3.9 million), Kasparas Jakucionis ($3.7 million), Pelle Larsson ($978,000 of $2 million salary currently guaranteed) and Keshad Johnson ($2 million).
If Robinson bypasses the early-termination option to guarantee a chunk of his salary for next season, he would become the 15th Heat player on that list and put the Heat at the 15-man regular-season limit for an NBA standard roster before free agency even begins on Monday.
Should Robinson skip the early-termination option in his contract and the Heat then guarantees his full $19.9 million salary along with the full salaries of Rozier and Larsson, the Heat has about $193.7 million in salaries committed to 15 players for next season.
When adding the $2.5 million in unlikely bonuses for Herro that need to be included for apron calculations, the Heat would have about $196.2 million in salaries committed to 15 players for next season.
With the projected salary cap for the 2025-26 season set at $154.6 million and the projected luxury tax set at $187.9 million, that means the Heat will be about $8 million above the luxury-tax threshold and on track to be a luxury-tax team for the third straight season. The Heat would also be just above the punitive first apron of $195.9 million, but still far from the dreaded second apron of $207.8 million.
In the scenario that Robinson doesn’t exercise the early-termination option in his contract, the Heat could free up $10 million by waiving him before the July 8 deadline to lower his cap hit from $19.9 million to $9.9 million and dip about $2 million under the luxury-tax line. In addition, the Heat could trade Robinson before his July 8 guarantee date in order to avoid the full $19.9 million cap hit.
The Heat could also waive and stretch Robinson’s contract ahead of the July 8 deadline, which would free up $16.6 million by lowering his cap hit from $19.9 million to $3.3 million and get the Heat about $8 million below the luxury-tax threshold. The downside for Miami is this would spread his $3.3 million cap hit over the next three seasons instead of just having his cap hit come off the books following this upcoming season.
Another option is for Robinson to exercise the early-termination option in his contract and become an unrestricted free agent this summer. Robinson can then work with the Heat to return on a contract that would pay him his current $9.9 million guarantee next season with additional seasons of guaranteed money tacked on to keep him and also escape the luxury tax.
Either way, the Heat still wouldn’t have cap space this offseason and would be left with only minimum contracts, one of the mid-level exceptions (either the $14.1 million non-taxpayer midlevel exception or the $5.7 million taxpayer million mid-level exception) and possibly the $5.1 million bi-annual exception to offer outside free agents. The Heat can also make a trade to add outside talent to the roster.
But getting out of the luxury tax is important for the Heat after finishing each of the last two seasons as a luxury tax team. Why? In order to avoid the onerous repeater tax that’s triggered when a team crosses the luxury tax threshold in four straight seasons or four times during a five-season period.
Among the outside free agents who have been linked to the Heat by multiple reports is Golden State Warriors forward Jonathan Kuminga, who will be a restricted free agent this summer.
The Heat has some level of interest in Kuminga, but is currently exploring other potential moves, according to a league source. Any move for Kuminga would almost definitely need to come through a sign-and-trade transaction since Miami doesn’t have cap space, and any team that acquires a player through a sign-and-trade is hard-capped at the first apron of $195.9 million.
There has been no free-agent meeting set between the Heat and Kuminga yet.
The list of players from the Heat’s season-ending roster who are still set to become free agents this summer includes guard Josh Christopher (unrestricted free agent), guard Alec Burks (unrestricted free agent), guard Dru Smith (restricted free agent) and guard Isaiah Stevens (unrestricted free agent). Robinson would join that list and become an unrestricted free agent this summer if he exercises the early-termination option in his contract before Sunday’s deadline
NBA teams were allowed to begin negotiating with their own impending free agents this past Monday after the NBA Finals ended. But free agents can’t begin negotiating with outside teams until this upcoming Monday at 6 p.m.
This story was originally published June 28, 2025 at 1:54 PM.
