Miami Heat Schedule: Five Intriguing Games To Watch
By Chris Posada
Mandatory Credit: Troy Taormina-USA TODAY Sports
January 3rd, @ Houston Rockets:
Or as I like to call it, the Chris Bosh “Thanks for helping me get an additional $30 million!” Game. This one should be particularly interesting, as you don’t often get the opportunity to see if a crowd is going to be upset with a player that they were led to believe was going to sign with them, but decided not to. Judging at how they whiffed on many free agents, this might qualify as about 75% (give or take) of Rockets home games this season.
The Rockets offseason plan was to find another star to team with James Harden and Dwight Howard, while also getting greedy and trying to keep Chandler Parsons on the roster. GM Daryl Morey managed to trade the contracts of Jeremy Lin and Omer Asik to help clear enough tax space to make a competitive offer to big names like LeBron and Carmelo Anthony.
LeBron didn’t seem to want to give Morey the time of day, while Carmelo seemed to care more about getting wined, dined, and embarrassing Lin. So the Rockets decided to change directions and take advantage of LeBron holding the Heat hostage trying to decide where he wanted to go by making overtures to Bosh. Houston would offer Bosh a 4 year, $88 million contract that brought him to the brink of leaving the Heat, even after it was rumored he would be willing to take much less to stay in Miami.
But that plan had one small hiccup: Parsons would sign an offer sheet with the Dallas Mavericks that the Rockets needed to decide to match within three days or risk losing him. Morey’s gamble of not extending a qualifying offer to Parsons in hopes of pursuing a star was about to backfire. The Rockets chose to go all-in with Bosh, since they felt that the Parsons deal was too rich for them. When LeBron opted to sign with the Cavaliers, Heat president Pat Riley offered an extra year and $30 million to insure Bosh stayed in Miami.
In the end, the Rockets lost Parsons, as well as gave up Asik, Lin, and a first round pick just so they could end up with Trevor Ariza. You think Rockets fans are happy with that?