Norris Cole’s Contract an Impending Issue
By David Ramil
A report by the Sun-Sentinel’s Ira Winderman details that a deadline to extend Norris Cole’s existing contract ends on October 31.
As Winderman explains here, the situation is pretty cut-and-dried:
"As with all players taken in the first-round of the 2011 NBA Draft who still are playing under their rookie contracts, the Heat have an Oct. 31 deadline to decide whether to offer Cole a rookie-scale extension. After that cutoff, any significant hike in salary from the Heat would have to wait until the 2015 offseason, when Cole would become a restricted free agent."
Cole’s recent promotion to the starting unit could be a major bargaining chip for the fourth-year guard as is his current agent, Rich Paul. As you might recall, Paul also serves as the agent for Eric Bledsoe (who held out for a considerable amount of time) and LeBron James.
The Heat are keeping a lid on their plans, only offering this vague response to Winderman:
"“I think that we’re going to make the right decision, absolutely,” was the extent that Heat President Pat Riley would go earlier in the preseason. “I’m not going to tell you right now, but I think we’ll make the right decision.”"
If the Heat do not offer an extension by the 31st, then they would have to present a qualifying offer in the amount of $3 million by July 1, 2015. That would enable Miami to match an offers entertained by Cole, whow would become a restricted free agent. We saw that play out in a number of ways this summer with Greg Monroe, Bledsoe and Gordon Hawyard. While all of those players are significantly more productive than Cole, adding Paul as his agent certainly could be a problem in the negotiations.
Cole, out of Cleveland State, was “familiar with” Paul, a childhood friend of James from Akron, Ohio.
Also at play is Miami’s plan for free agency in 2016, when the league is expected to receive a significant amount of money due to the recently reached television contract. That windfall will trickle down to the 30 NBA teams and allow for more money to sign free agents.
The Heat could retain Cole’s services for a 1-year contract, gauge his worth before the start of the 2016 season (when Mario Chalmers’ contract is due to come off the books and rookie Shabazz Napier might have proven himself ready for an increased role) and then try to re-sign Cole as an unrestricted free agent.
Stay tuned for the latest updates with the deadline only a week away.