Could it be possible that the 3 met up, came to the conclusion that their run is over and this is a way to keep Miami relevant? Sounds crazy but lets say LeBron leaves and Wade and Bosh each re-signs with Miami for $15 million / 3 years each. That should leave them at least enough room to sign a 2nd or 3rd tier star if my fuzzy math is correct. Wade $15 million Bosh $15 million Cole $2 million Napier $1 million I'm thinking that's all of their guaranteed contracts. Birdman has a player option for about $1.5 so lets say he picks up his player option. That's $34.5 million spread among 5 players. They still have roughly, what, $29 million to fill out the roster? Get Lowry for $10 million, Ariza for $6 million, and you have $13 million left for 7 players FA Center Bosh Ariza Wade Lowry Cole Napier Anderson I would think that roster can get them at least a 6th seed in the East.
Great post. If I'm Riley, I do option B. For a guy that plays 60% of the season and still isn't 100% for the post-season I can't pay that guy $10M per. I'm sorry, loyalty is good and nice but if you're trying to build a championship team, you can't spend money like that.
There is only 2 ways this will work. #1 is the most likely and the easiest. James takes a 4-5 million dollar pay cut. The Heat get a verbal comittment from Lowry or Gortat and then sell James on the paycut. #2 is very unlikely, and that is getting one of these close to all star players (Deng/Lowry/Gasol/Gortat) to take only 5 million a year. This is just not going to happen. Riley is going to need to convince James to take less... and that is not going to be easy.
I hear you but this same player just opted out of 2 years and $40 million plus in salary so that he can give your organization some flexibility. I highly doubt Riley would d!ck Wade over like that. Bosh, on the other hand,.....
And I agree. But if they retool and bring in other players (Lowry, Ariza, etc.) that can fill in the role Bosh has with the team now in terms of offense I think it can be done. Hell, if they do go that course and keep LeBron and Bosh while leaving Wade out there's going to be an asteroid size helping of karma heading their way in the future.
Yeah I don't think they will ultimately do it, but the Heat would be BETTER in my mind if they replaced Bosh with a combination of say Gasol and Lowry. I think Bosh still has it in him to be a really good player, but I don't think the Heat really use him in a way that makes him all that valuable. It's almost a waste of resources. To use a baseball analogy, why would you go out and sign a high dollar home run hitter if you just wanted to bunt runners over. I know Bosh does more than that analogy suggests, but I definitely don't feel like they utilize him in max dollar ways.
And if it's Bosh, he'd be a great fit in Houston. Lol maybe another road-trip with the Rowdies is in the books.
Gortat Andersen LeBron Wade Lowry That lineup might preserve Wade's already-crippling legs a bit longer.
Yea but we have to gut our team and our appeal was that we already have a ready made roster... Getting rid of chandler and Pat makes us way less desirable.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Various numbers being reported nationally on LeBron's 1st year salary.Cap expert Larry Coon says maximum he can make in 2014-15: $20.65 M</p>— Barry Jackson (@flasportsbuzz) <a href="https://twitter.com/flasportsbuzz/statuses/483700279372963840">June 30, 2014</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script> <blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>.... Number could be adjusted slightly when cap is set next week.</p>— Barry Jackson (@flasportsbuzz) <a href="https://twitter.com/flasportsbuzz/statuses/483700374877261825">June 30, 2014</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Shot in the dark to make sense of this, but maybe Lebron wants the max (or near it) to go anywhere else. He might still take a discount to stay but there's no point in making that public.
