It turns out the Miami Heat didn’t trade Goran Dragic to the Dallas Mavericks after all, following an incorrect ESPN report. Instead, Kelly Olynyk and Derrick Jones Jr. will be headed to Texas.
In the craze of the first night of free agency, an incorrect report from ESPN indicated that Goran Dragic was traded by the Miami Heat to the Dallas Mavericks as part of the sign-and-trade that brought Jimmy Butler from the Philadelphia 76ers to Miami.
Instead, the Mavericks acquired Kelly Olynyk and Derrick Jones Jr. from the Heat, and Dragic will remain in Miami.
According to Marc Stein of the New York Times:
The Mavericks are huge fans of Goran Dragic but could not take him back in the Miami sign-and-trade with Philadelphia that sends Jimmy Butler to the Heat because Dallas feared losing its flexibility to make additional moves this summer, league sources say
— Marc Stein (@TheSteinLine) July 1, 2019
Because Dragic’s $19 million salary is higher than the combined $14.4 million of Olynyk and Jones, the Heat will now have an even more oppressive salary number as they look to make this move legal per the CBA. The Heat currently have $152 million on the books, and they will need to get under the $138 luxury tax apron in order to officially consummate the transaction.
While they may have sent out all the players they are going to in trades for their part of the deal, it’s a virtual certainty that they will either waive and stretch Ryan Anderson‘s expiring 2019-20 $21 million salary (only $15.6 million of which is guaranteed), or find a way to trade him into another team’s cap space.
If they do waive and stretch him, the $21 million will be reduce to just $5.2 million in each of the next three seasons, as the stretch provision takes the remaining guaranteed salary and divides it over the remaining seasons, times two, plus one. So in this case, that stretch would take place over three seasons.
They also have a number of non-guaranteed contracts on the books, $1.416 million for each of Duncan Robinson, Yante Maten and Kendrick Nunn, any or all of which could be waived for no cost on the salary cap.
All this being the case, they do have the means to get well under the luxury tax apron in order to make legal this trade of their own volition, without requiring the assistance of other teams.