Miami Heat: 5 key questions to keep an eye on as free agency looms
By Duncan Smith
What is Pat Riley’s plan to get out of the luxury tax?
Unless the Miami Heat put together a major push into the top of the Eastern Conference, it’s safe to say that ownership will be incentivized to stay out of the luxury tax. After all, the Heat cut Rodney McGruder, a player who played 66 games last season for them and averaged 23.5 minutes per appearance, before they were mathematically eliminated from the playoffs last season in order to get under the luxury tax.
With this in mind, it’s safe to say that marginal contention is not worth the tax for this organization.
As we mentioned previously, stretching Ryan Anderson’s contract is within the realm of possibility from a pure savings standpoint, but moving any of the more cumbersome contracts like the ones belonging to Hassan Whiteside and James Johnson will require including high-value assets like first-round picks or young players with upside on rookie scale contracts.
The Heat are in a conundrum as getting cheaper will almost certainly be a painful process, and almost certainly cannot be done in conjunction with getting better on the court given that moving off bad money will come with a bitter cost.