With the news that Kawhi Leonard signed a three-year deal with a player option, the Miami Heat may want to hold off on the Russell Westbrook trade chase.
After early reports stated that Kawhi Leonard was signing a four-year max deal with the Los Angeles Clippers, it turns out he is signing just a three-year max deal with a player option in the third year. His new free agency timetable might make the Miami Heat pump the brakes on their pursuit of a trade for Russell Westbrook.
While the Heat currently have a roster full of rich contracts with multiple years, the year those contracts come off the books will be the same year that both Leonard and Paul George will be choosing what to do with their player options. In the 2021-22 season, both superstars will decide whether to return to the Clippers or re-enter free agency.
In the 2021-22 offseason, the Miami Heat will shed the contracts of Kelly Olynyk, James Johnson, and Dion Waiters. They will have only Jimmy Butler, Tyler Herro and KZ Okpala on the books with guaranteed contracts, and they will have a team option on Justise Winslow worth $13 million.
The Heat will also have the final year of Ryan Anderson‘s stretched contract on the books, which brings a cap hit just over $5 million.
If the Miami Heat keep the books clean for the 2021-22 season and don’t pick up Winslow’s option, they will have around $47 million on the books which projects to be more than enough for two max salary slots.
If the Heat do have designs on the 2021 free agent market, they will need to pass on trading for Russell Westbrook. In the 2021-22 season, Westbrook and Butler’s combined salaries will be $80.4 million, which scuttles any hope for a shot at Kawhi Leonard or Westbrook’s former Oklahoma City Thunder teammate Paul George.
Trading for Westbrook will essentially lock the Miami Heat in place for the entirety of the remainder of his four-year contract. Financial flexibility will immediately become a thing of the past, as will any significant free agency pursuit for the foreseeable future.
Strangely enough, the Heat will have to decide their plans for the summer of 2021’s free agency bonanza in the summer of 2019, and they’ll need to do so sooner than later.