Dion Waiters may be nearing a decision on his free agent destination, according to Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN, who reports (via Twitter) that the Waiters situation is “inching closer to resolution.” Waiters is considering the Heat, Knicks, and Lakers, per Wojnarowski.
Waiters, who earned less than $3MM in 2016/17, had a big year for the Heat, averaging 15.8 PPG, 4.3 APG, and 3.3 RPG with a shooting line of .424/.395/.646. Although he was limited to 46 games (43 starts), the 25-year-old appears likely to parlay his performance in Miami into a much bigger payday this summer after turning down his player option with the club.
The Heat, Knicks, and Lakers all have a good deal of cap room available, though New York will have to renounce Derrick Rose to make use of that room and Miami may dedicate a portion of its space to a new deal for James Johnson. It’s not clear how many years those teams will be willing to offer — the Lakers are known to be avoiding multiyear commitments, and it’s possible that Miami and New York will want to preserve cap flexibility for the summer of 2018 as well.
The Bulls and Kings were linked to Waiters earlier in the offseason, but Chicago is now in rebuilding mode and Sacramento made its big backcourt splash by agreeing to sign George Hill.
Willing to bet money it won’t be the Lakers. Which sucks as a Lakers fan to say that but seems nobody is willing to settle for their one year offer.
Man! FA week has rough! Cmon Dion
Come to LA!
Why settle for one year in LA when other teams are offering more years at equal money (Hill)? You gotta blow the doors off if you want a top talent to accept it, like JJ in Philly. Not like taking one year deal in LA gets them a ring, so you gotta pay them
My assumption is Pat Riley is waiting for Bosh to clear waivers and the Dion and JJ to other teams links are just leverage plays by their agents, like what AI did with GS…Waiters is likely going to get somewhere between $15-17 million. He is likely using the other teams to get that number closer to the 17 than the 14-15…2 + 1 deals for both would be nice
I do think he’d be a great fit on the Lakers or Knicks, but the Lakers are trying to preserve cap space and the Knicks are…well, they’re still the knicks even though they finally got rid of Phil, and they’re stuck with Noah, so they can’t do much else afterwards
What would be the motivation for waiting for Bosh to clear waivers?
So they can use the cap space to sign Waiters and JJ? Or do they already immediately have it back?
I believe you’re right that they don’t officially get the space until Bosh clears waivers, but nothing would be stopping them from reaching agreements now and making them official later in the week (since they can’t make them official yet anyway).
True. My guess is that Riley wanted to handle the Bosh situation as carefully as possible. He’s one of the greatest players in the history of this franchise. For this to be how his playing tender ends, it’s a sensitive situation. Maybe out of respect, he wanted to give that it’s own attention
MIA doesn’t need cap space to sign either Waiters or JJ. Both are their own FAs, so they can go over the cap to sign either or both.
The Heat only have Johnson’s and Waiters’ Non-Bird rights, so they can’t give raises of more than 20% unless they use cap room.
If they had their bird rights, this offseason would have gone differently, but we only had early bird on Whiteside and Tyler johnson last year, and they have Waiters, JJ, and Reed’s non bird rights, so they can’t offer more than slight 20% raises over their small salaries from last year, without using the space, as Luke Adams pointed out
As much as i want him back in Miami, i think he goes to the highest bidder. Miami wont offer more than 3-4 years at around 15 million annually. NYK i think will offer him a huge contract.
A big, multi-year overpay deal has the Knicks written all over it. Adding Waiters would take touches away from KP, clog up their cap space even more, and give them another iso-ball player (in addition to Melo). So essentially, its exactly the type of deal the Knicks give out.
Except the Knicks have said they will not overpay any free agent this year. Otherwise they would have signed Teague or Hill.
One year contracts ONLY guarantees that the Lakers will only acquire what’s “left” in free agency.
Sad but true. Though they could go crazy and give some RFA a pay day. Fortunately with Lopez’s contract they won’t be that foolish. I understand the Lakers plan but with star players being traded for a loaf of bread they’ve gotta be disappointed they missed onn Butler and George
They never seemed to be that interested in Butler, and while George is probably still likely to go to LA next year, a lot can change in a year. I wouldn’t be surprised if Indy purposely didn’t take the LA deal out of spite. Granted it wasn’t that great of a deal (although it becomes more fair when you consider the Pacers’ lack of leverage), but supposedly Indy preferred not to trade him in-conference (so they only have to face him twice) and avoiding trading him to LA (if LA’s offer wasn’t the best offer) makes sense if they essentially wanted to spite him for killing all of their leverage (i.e. why send him to where he wants to go a year early when they could force him to play elsewhere for a year, its not like the Pacers owed George any favors).
Knicks love to buy high and sell low. Add in that he’s undersized, doesn’t defend, not a team guy and was toxic waste before this past year, and it’s perfect fit.