With the recent acquisition of Jimmy Butler, the Miami Heat jump-started their rebuild. This must be remembered though, they are still ahead of schedule.
The Miami Heat were seemingly in a state of paralysis. They were in NBA contract purgatory with seemingly misplaced and misguided contracts on the books, that not only held their salary cap hostage but couldn’t be flipped for better talent due to the undesirable nature of the players and their corresponding contracts.
While Pat Riley ensured the world and especially the Miami Heat faithful that he would bring another title to this franchise and fan base before he called it quits, it was hard to envision when correlating those thoughts and proclamations with the current salary cap and roster situation. What situation might one ask?
This situation was one in which Dion Waiters, who has struggled with injury and other issues throughout his tenure with the Miami Heat, is still owed close to $25 million dollars over the next two years. It is a situation where James Johnson, who although brings value has struggled with his shooting while also struggling to gain the admiration and trust of the fans, still has at least one guaranteed year and a player option for a second year on his contract that could see him make close to $31 million dollars across the next two seasons.
This is a situation where Kelly Olynyk, who most feel that although he is a valuable piece that he isn’t worth the money he is being paid, has at least one more guaranteed year with a player option on a second year that could see him make over $23.5 million dollars across the next two. While Goran Dragic and the since traded Hassan Whiteside would be on the final years of their deals this upcoming season, they would have made close to $46.3 million dollars combined during this upcoming season.
With these deals in place, it was supposed to be a situation where the Miami Heat wouldn’t be able to make significant improvements until at least after this upcoming season, and with the next free agent class being a weaker one by most standards, possibly until after the following season in the 2020-21 season. Well, it didn’t happen that way.
Although the Miami Heat were forced to give up Josh Richardson in the deal that saw them land Jimmy Butler, they were able to acquire that resident star player that they need in order to possibly attract more, on the way back to the promised land. In the process, they were also able to relieve themselves of the final year of Hassan Whiteside’s deal, which may not seem like much considering it would have come off the books after this season, but was a huge win for the Heat as they not only got back a guy who can help them in Meyers Leonard but also got rid of a guy who had seemingly become a little toxic to the environment.
Now, these moves alone don’t mean that they have immediately vaulted back into title contention, but what it does say is that they are ahead of the schedule that we all predicted wouldn’t begin to take shape until at least after this season. While there is still more work to do, it is encouraging that Pat Riley and the rest of the Miami Heat decision-makers were able to pull off what they did to acquire Butler in the first place.
While the Heat may still be a few pieces away from actually securing their next precious piece of NBA Championship hardware, we are potentially not as far away from that moment as we imagined we’d be at the end of this past season heading into this next season. Say what you will about the moves they’ve made or even the current state of the roster, but what you also have to remember and acknowledge is that the Miami Heat are firmly ahead of schedule.