Thursday is the first day that NBA teams can sign players to 10-day contracts this season, and it’s a tool that the Heat have used frequently in the past, writes Ira Winderman of The South Florida Sun Sentinel. For now though, Miami remains in “roster gridlock,” with the maximum 15 players under contract. It’s unlikely that all 15 of those players will finish the season with the Heat, but the team will be in no rush to cut ties with veterans, since their contracts might be required to make trades work at the trade deadline. After the deadline passes in late February, Miami will likely be more inclined to take fliers on players on 10-day contracts.
Here’s more on the Heat:
- The NBA’s new Collective Bargaining Agreement will impact a number of Heat players on rookie contracts or minimum salary deals, giving them a salary bump beginning in 2017/18, Winderman notes in a piece for The Sun Sentinel. That’s welcome news for players affected by the change, such as Josh Richardson. “I was excited,” Richardson said. “Any time you say more money to a young fellow like us, I’m like, ‘Oh, yeah,’ I’m going to jump all over that. They told me I was going to be getting paid a little bit more and I was like, ‘Sounds great to me. I’m going to go to the gym right now.'”
- With the Heat projected to land a lottery pick of their own for 2017, one of Winderman’s readers wonders if the team could go all-in on the draft, trading Goran Dragic in a deal that secures another top pick. However, Winderman is skeptical that Pat Riley would lean too heavily on the draft – which would likely mean adding multiple teenagers to the roster – when the Heat president prefers a rapid rebuild.
- In a separate mailbag, Winderman explores whether a reunion with Mario Chalmers could be in the cards for the Heat, and discusses the impact that Rodney McGruder has had on the team. McGruder is on a non-guaranteed deal, but appears to be in little danger of losing his roster spot before the upcoming salary guarantee deadline.
- Chris Crouse of Hoops Rumors took an extended look at Tyler Johnson‘s fantasy basketball value in his weekly Fantasy Hoops feature on Tuesday night.
Trade Whiteside. Only trade Dragic for a big deal. Reexplore his market before the draft. Still, if they trade Whiteside and get back another young piece and a draft pick, that would give them a nice core of young pieces, and they’d have cap room to build around Dragic with a Milsap/Heyward signing. They could quickly be a top 3 or 4 team in the East next year. You aren’t going to get a guard like Dragic for a better contract than they have him for