TUESDAY, 3:12pm: James is indeed seeking a maximum salary deal for just one or two seasons, according to John Canzano of The Oregonian. Canzano reiterates the details of the discounted figures to which Wade and Bosh have consented to assist the team in its attempt at a significant upgrade.
MONDAY, 12:26pm: LeBron James will insist on the maximum salary in a new deal this summer, reports Brian Windhorst of ESPN.com, though it’s not clear whether he’d demand the maximum number of years. James isn’t planning to meet with any teams, allowing agent Rich Paul to do all of the negotiating, and that plus his salary demand has led teams around the league to believe more strongly that James will stay with the Heat, according to Windhorst.
The ESPN scribe suggests that the NBA’s maximum salary for a veteran of 10 or more seasons will rise to $22.2MM for 2014/15. That would be the max for James, but even if the NBA’s max doesn’t surge that high, James’ max will be no less than $20,020,875, which is 105% of his salary from this past season.
James met with Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh to discuss salaries this weekend, so it appears it will be up to Wade and Bosh to take discounts if the Heat are going to add a free agent of note from another team this summer. All three took less than the max to sign with Miami in 2010.
Windhorst’s assertion that James appears increasingly likely to re-sign counters a dispatch from Sam Amico of Fox Sports Ohio, who hears that James had begun to distance himself from Heat management during the season. Still, a source tells Amico that James would like to sign a deal that would give him the ability to opt out after one season, and with James apparently undecided on the length of his deal, according to Windhorst, perhaps James is indeed eyeing another shot at free agency in 2015.
James is a great player on the court but he’s becoming an idiot off of it.
How so?
He wants to supposedly sign a deal with a chance to opt out after 1 year? And he won’t even meet with anyone and have his agent deal with it? Dude is a head case off the court.
He’s the best player in the world. He doesn’t have to follow the norm.
Isn’t that kind of what he has an agent for?
He has the right to do so. If teams are willing to sign him knowing James might opt out after a year, then what does it matter?
Ultimately it’s the job of the agent to be the middleman when negotiating deals.
No that’s just smart. Why lock himself up with a junk team, if these guys fall apart a 2nd year in a row, he’s gone.
So James wants Bosh & Wade to opt out to take a discount so that he can sign a max deal and the Heat can still add pieces via FA? Sounds like Wade & Bosh got hosed in that exchange
They got to contribute to two titles mostly on the back of his accomplishments. Now that their games are declining, but he’s still an MVP-caliber player, what’s unfair about this development?
The fact that they were asked to turn down their final 2 yr/40+M years and take noticeably less so James can sign a max. I’m totally fine with James opting out & asking for a max. Just think that asking other players (including someone like Haslem) to opt out & take less while he asks for a max is a dick move (unless James plans on throwing each of them some of his own cash reserves)
Wade and Bosh are the two people who should have a problem with this, but seeing as they decided to do it, it doesn’t seem like they mind. LeBron’s going to get the max because he deserves it and Bosh/Wade know that. They have to sacrifice to keep him there, because he has better opportunities to win elsewhere.
They can stay, and not win another playoff series, or they can opt out and get w/his program. Simple as that. He could go to any other team in the East and probably land in the Finals.
Basically, he said – you guys disappeared in the finals, your overblown salaries need to follow suite.
Good. He deserves it. Best player in the game has never been the highest paid on his own team.
I’d take anything from Windhorst with a grain of salt… not too long ago he had Lebron going to the lakers, Cavs and the Rockets.
As a Heat fan, I couldnt ask any of them to take a pay-cut, and to be honest, I personally dont think any of them should. The plan was altered by the new CBA, designed to specifically hurt the Heat after signing these guys 4 years ago….Having said that, for the Heat to accomplish what they want, they would need them to take pay cuts. If LeBron wants the max (and I’m not going to necessarily 100% buy that until I hear/see it from him), then as I said, thats perfectly understandable and he should get it. Honestly, I see multiple other spots for these guys to go, and have said that all season, that would probably make a little more sense than staying with the Heat. I’ve simply counted on the presence of Pat Riley, and the idea of sticking with what you know, who you know, and the fact that it seems like these guys like living in Miami. I wont blame them for leaving for whatever reason. Hopefully, things work out, and they can stay together while adding talent around them.
As a Heat fan, I couldnt ask any of them to take a pay-cut, and to be honest, I personally dont think any of them should. The plan was altered by the new CBA, designed to specifically hurt the Heat after signing these guys 4 years ago….Having said that, for the Heat to accomplish what they want, they would need them to take pay cuts. If LeBron wants the max (and I’m not going to necessarily 100% buy that until I hear/see it from him), then as I said, thats perfectly understandable and he should get it. Honestly, I see multiple other spots for these guys to go, and have said that all season, that would probably make a little more sense than staying with the Heat. I’ve simply counted on the presence of Pat Riley, and the idea of sticking with what you know, who you know, and the fact that it seems like these guys like living in Miami. I wont blame them for leaving for whatever reason. Hopefully, things work out, and they can stay together while adding talent around them.