These offseason decisions coming into focus for Heat during playoff run. And Butler feats
A couple of personnel priorities have crystallized as the Miami Heat has waltzed through these playoffs unbeaten through seven games.
For starters, Miami assuredly will attempt to retain impending free agents Goran Dragic and Jae Crowder with one-year offers. But also becoming clear is the reality that spending $23 million on centers who are now backups, as is the case for the Heat, isn’t ideal in today’s downsized NBA.
The Heat likely will need to choose between Kelly Olynyk (who has a $12.2 million player option) and free agent Meyers Leonard this offseason, in order to maximize flexibility under the luxury tax threshold. Another cheap backup big, perhaps at the minimum, also could be added.
Olynyk - who’s averaging 6.7 points, 5.5 rebounds and 13.0 minutes off the bench in these playoffs - missed Game 3 of the Heat-Bucks series with a bruised right knee and is listed as questionable for Sunday’s Game 4.
Before the NBA season resumed, the notion of Olynyk opting out of $12.2 million for next season - in an NBA economy damaged by a pandemic - seemed unfathomable.
Now, it can no longer be ruled out. If a team gets word to Olynyk’s agent that it would be willing to offer Olynyk a three-year deal starting at the mid-level exception (perhaps $9 million), that could prompt him to opt out.
If Olynyk opts in, the Heat could trade him to a team willing to absorb his salary or simply keep him and not make an offer to Leonard, who started Miami’s first 49 games, but then injured his ankle in a game the night after the Super Bowl and didn’t return until the Disney restart.
Leonard lost his starting job and then lost his rotation spot to Olynyk, who’s shooting 7 for 16 (43.8 percent) on three-pointers in the playoffs.
Leonard looked rusty in nine minutes in Game 3, finishing with no points or rebounds and missing both shots from the field.
“It was a great feeling to be back out there and I still have some time,” Leonard said. “I’m more than prepared.”
It likely would require Leonard accepting a very team-friendly contract for him to have any chance of returning.
Olynyk (78) and Leonard (8) have played a combined 86 minutes in seven playoff games, with the Heat opting for a smaller lineup with Crowder at power forward.
Here’s how the math stands for Miami for next season: Miami has $86 million committed to 10 players for next season, including a $5.2 waive-and-stretch hit on Ryan Anderson.
With the Heat likely unwilling to offer more than one-year deals in order to preserve ample cap space in 2021, Miami is expected to make generous single-season offers to Dragic (earning $19.1 million this season) and Crowder, who is earning $7.8 million and has proved invaluable.
“He does it on both ends; it’s not an easy series for him,” Erik Spoelstra said of Crowder. “He has to sacrifice his body and play against the MVP. Sometimes play against a 7-footer, sometimes put him on guards. He’s basically guarding one through five in this series.”
If the Heat, hypothetically, gives Dragic $20 million and Crowder $10 million in one-year deals, that would bring Miami’s cap commitments to $116 million.
The luxury tax line hasn’t been set, but if it remains at this year’s $132.6 million, that would give Miami more than $15 million to sign Derrick Jones Jr. or Leonard or use its mid-level exception, which could fall in the $9 million range, or a $3.8 million bi-annual exception and/or its $7.5 million trade exception.
Among power rotation players entering free agency, besides Leonard: Enes Kanter, Paul Millsap, Tristan Thompson, Markieff Morris and Aron Baynes.
Bird Rights allow Miami to surpass the salary cap to sign Dragic, Crowder, Jones and Leonard.
BUTLER FEATS
In Game 3, Jimmy Butler joined Dwyane Wade as the only Heat players in franchise history to score at least 25 points in the second half of multiple playoff games in the same postseason, per ESPN. Butler is the only Heat player to do this twice within the same series in franchise history.
And there’s this, per Stathead: Butler is averaging 23.1 points, 5.0 rebounds, 4.3 assists, 2.1 steals and 11.7 free throw attempts. Michael Jordan (1989) and LeBron James (2017) are the only other players in NBA playoff history to produce at least these numbers through seven games.
“His level of focus, when it comes to getting guys involved in the offense, his intangibles on the defensive end are just off the charts,” Leonard said of Butler. “He is the ultimate competitor. Everybody wondered, ‘Oh, well is he too competitive?’ He’s a winner. And he expects the same level of focus, effort, energy, mental focus, from his teammates. And you are seeing him not only do it himself, but he’s bringing the best out of others, as well.”
▪ The Heat listed Tyler Herro as probable with a right hip bruise... For the Bucks, MVP candidate Giannis Antetokoumpo is questionable with a right ankle sprain.
▪ Dragic finished sixth in Sixth Man of the Year voting, behind winner Montrezl Harrell, Denis Schroder, Lou Williams, Christian Wood and George Hill. Dragic received six third-place votes. Derrick Rose, Davis Bertans and Dwight Howard were the only others who got votes for the top three.
▪ The lineup that fueled the Game 3 fourth-quarter stampede - Butler, Bam Adebayo, Crowder, Tyler Herro and Dragic--- has outscored teams 39-17 during 15 minutes of playing time in postseason.
▪ Minnesota guard D’Angelo Russell said on J.J. Redick’s podcast that if he had to build a team for the next 10 years around one of the NBA’s young players, he would pick Adebayo.
“Honestly, the way the league’s going, I’m going to go Bam, Bam Adebayo,” Russell said. “When you have somebody that big that’s so versatile at the defensive end and what he brings on the offensive end, it’s just the way the league is going. You see him guarding Giannis [Antetokounmpo] throughout the season, and he just made that matchup tough for him.”
Redick said: “That’s an incredible pick. I like it. I do think one of the most undervalued skill sets from a fan’s perspective . . . is guys who can guard multiple positions. Bam switches like one through five.”
This story was originally published September 5, 2020 at 1:29 PM.
