Last postseason, Max Strus and Gabe Vincent helped propel the Heat to a Finals appearance and priced themselves out of the team’s range in the offseason. Strus went on to sign a four-year, $62.3MM contract in a sign-and-trade with Cleveland while Vincent departed for the Lakers on a three-year, $33MM deal.
A similar situation may be happening this year with Caleb Martin and Haywood Highsmith, according to Barry Jackson of the Miami Herald. Martin was instrumental in the Heat’s Eastern Conference Finals win over Boston last year, averaging 19.3 points per game and shooting 48.9% from three in that seven-game series. He had an up-and-down regular season in 2023/24 but just scored 21 points while making five threes against the Celtics in Game 2 of their current series.
Highsmith had a career year with Miami, averaging 6.1 PPG while shooting 39.6% on three-pointers and emerging as a key rotation player in 26 starts. He had nine points, three rebounds and one steal on Wednesday against Boston while continuing to display his impressive defense.
Martin has a player option for next season at $7.1MM that he’s likely to decline, while Highsmith will be an unrestricted free agent. As Jackson observes, the Heat project to have a payroll of $172.9MM next year if Kevin Love, Josh Richardson and Thomas Bryant pick up their small player options, which is expected, and if Martin opts out.
Jackson notes that while the Heat own the Bird rights for both players, re-signing both, or either, would put them over or extremely close to the restrictive second tax apron. Miami might be able to re-sign Highsmith without going over the second apron, but that’s a less likely scenario with Martin, who is expected to demand at least the full projected $12.8MM non-taxpayer mid-level exception, according to ESPN’s Bobby Marks. Marks expects Highsmith to get between $8-10MM annually.
Miami didn’t offer Strus a contract last year but offered Vincent a four-year, $34MM deal before he signed with L.A.
We have more notes on the Heat:
- The Heat shocked the Celtics in Game 2 on Boston’s home floor (where they lost just four games in the regular season) behind a historic three-point shooting display, Anthony Chiang of the Miami Herald writes. Miami, without Jimmy Butler and Terry Rozier, bounced back from a 20-point loss in Game 1 to defeat the Celtics and steal home court advantage by evening the series 1-1. The Heat set a franchise record for threes in a playoff game by connecting on 23 of their 43 attempts. It is tied for the second-most three-pointers Miami has ever made in a game in franchise history. “It was a very good response just from the connectivity, the efforts, all of that,” Heat coach Erik Spoelstra said. As observed by Heat.com’s Couper Moorhead (Twitter link), Miami now has four playoff games in the past two seasons with 50% shooting from three, all of which came against Boston. No other team has more than one such game against any opponent.
- Spoelstra made it a point of emphasis to get better looks and a higher volume of shots from beyond the arc after the Heat were out-shot 22-12 from deep in Game 1, ESPN’s Chris Herring points out. By beating Boston in Game 2, Miami became the first playoff team in the past 30 years to win by double-digits after being an underdog of 14 points or more.
- As Herring details, the Heat made it an emphasis to get Tyler Herro involved as a play-maker — he had 14 assists — and to limit Kristaps Porzingis, who finished with six points on 1-of-9 shooting. “We’ve been doubted a lot through our playoff runs, people saying we couldn’t do a lot of stuff that we did,” Bam Adebayo said. “So for me and my team, why lose belief now? Our backs are against the wall. Everybody’s against us. So just use that as fuel.“
- Despite the expectation that he’ll miss multiple weeks with his MCL injury, Butler is staying involved in the Heat’s postseason. In an Instagram post, he poked fun at the Celtics after Miami took Game 2. As Ira Winderman of South Florida’s Sun Sentinel writes, Butler has been involved in other ways too, and sent teammate Herro a more serious message ahead of Game 1. “Just before the series, [Butler] texted me to take the team and lead these guys, just make every right play,” Herro said.
Booing him was a poor decision by Boston fans. Reactivated 2023 Martin lol
The Celtics got beat in the playoffs last year by making the Heat into star three point shooters. Same thing in this Game 2 loss. Whatever the 3 pt defense Celts play it sure doesn’t work against the Heat. Most of the Heat’s record 23 threes were complete open looks. Go Celtics!
Just as I knew we would lose Strus and Nnamdi, I always knew the Heat were losing Caleb and Highsmith. I held put a little hope for Caleb, before the terrible Lowry+somehow a pick for Rozier trade, but that deal pretty much cemented that Caleb will get paid elsewhere, which I’m super happy for him about, but also super sad to see him go. Had they not done that, I couldnhave seen a world where they resign Kyle for 2 years at a lower amount, and offer Caleb close to the $18mil a year he probably at least gets. Heat had their bird rights, so it was plausible, but now they have Rozier’s money on their cap, and the fit isn’t as strong, unless you can somehow move Rozier, or Herro, maybe in a package with Jovic. Like anything from $14-20 mil AAV would be nice to keep Caleb if it were possible,
There are options in FA for the Heat, and they have the 15th and 43rd picks, so depends what they do there, and in summer league, but there are more than several FA options I think make sense.
Highsmith should have played last year, and I think I’ve now been proven correct there, but the Heat do have things available to replace him.
They’ve had multiple guys the last couple of years they haven’t used that can play in that spot, so they could get more looks as well. I’m super behind Jamal Cain, and assume he will be convented to the standard roster, which he should have been instead of Patty mills to end this season. If not, again, they still have the draft, summer league, and many FA options
I haven’t started my draft research yet. Anyone have ideas of 2/3s or 4/3s, or 2 way combo guards, potentially available in their draft ranges?