The Heat have completed a series of roster moves, according to reports from Anthony Chiang of The Miami Herald and Ira Winderman of the South Florida Sun Sentinel. Those moves are as follows:
Exercised their team option on Keshad Johnson ($1,955,377).- Issued a qualifying offer to Davion Mitchell ($8,741,210), making him a restricted free agent.
- Issued a qualifying offer to Dru Smith (two-way), making him a restricted free agent.
Johnson, who celebrated his 24th birthday on Monday, played a limited role for the Heat as a rookie, appearing in just 16 games and logging 98 total minutes at the NBA level. However, he impressed in the G League, with averages of 17.6 points, 8.3 rebounds, and 2.3 assists in 35.1 minutes per game across 32 appearances for the Sioux Falls Skyforce. The undrafted rookie earned a promotion from his two-way contract to the standard roster in December.
While some team options remain non-guaranteed after they’re exercised, that’s not the case for Johnson, whose $1.96MM salary for 2025/26 is now fully guaranteed. He’s on track to be eligible for restricted free agency during the summer of 2026.
Mitchell, a former ninth overall pick who has always had a reputation as a tenacious defender, earned his qualifying offer by emerging as an offensive weapon during the second half of the ’24/25 season.
After being traded from Toronto to Houston, the 26-year-old averaged 10.3 points and 5.3 assists per game with a .504/.447/.702 shooting line in 30 regular season outings for the Heat. He was even better in the postseason, making 59.3% of his field goal attempts and 52.0% of his three-pointers with averages of 15.2 PPG and 6.5 APG in six play-in and playoff outings.
Mitchell, who ranks 28th on our top-50 free agent list, will have the option of accepting his $8.7MM qualifying offer, which would set him up to become an unrestricted free agent in 2026. However, he’ll likely explore a multiyear deal with the Heat or another team. If he signs an offer sheet with a rival suitor, Miami would have the opportunity to match it.
Smith had his 2024/25 cut short due to a torn Achilles, but has always been a Heat favorite and will apparently have the opportunity to return on another two-way contract. He was the only one of three Miami two-way players to receive a qualifying offer — it doesn’t appear Isaiah Stevens will get one, while Josh Christopher was ineligible for a QO.
A bit of an interesting decision on Johnson, as his salary won’t provide any savings against the tax versus a veteran on a minimum contract. Is he worth that?
1.96M is less than the VM for a 3-year player (2.09M this past season). So yes, there is some tax savings.
Nope as a 1-yr undrafted player his cap hit for tax accounting will equal the 2-yr VM.
Service time minimums for 25-26
0 years: 1.27M
1 years: 2.05M
2 years: 2.30M
link to spotrac.com
Johnson’s Salary and Cap Hit per Spotrac is 1.96M (which is also 90K less than what he’d go for on the open market).
link to spotrac.com
I said it affects their salary number by which luxury tax is calculated against. “If that player signed a two-year, minimum-salary contract, his salary and cap hit in 2025/26 would be $1,955,377, but he’d count for $2,191,897 toward the tax (those figures can be found in the second column of our minimum-salary chart).”
link to hoopsrumors.com
The Kings have a PG on every team but there’s.
The kings are still a badly run organization, Divac and the owner ran it into the ground… not easy to recover. Mitchell would have been the 2- way point guard they were searching for… How many coaches have been let go?….