Do Miami Heat qualify for Disabled Player Exception with Meyers Leonard injury?

The Miami Heat are the picture of Murphy’s Law right now, as the bad luck just keeps on coming. If you’re not familiar with Murphy’s law, it’s the one that goes “what can go wrong, will go wrong” and well, that’s the Miami Heat alright.

Their latest collision with Lady Luck’s bad side comes in the form of a season ending injury to a player that plays a position of need. That is… with him in the rotation.

So, to think about being without him makes it that much more taxing. Meyers Leonard will be done for the year, as he needs surgery to repair an injured shoulder.

Here’s the thing, there may be sunshine on the other side of this dark cloud for the Miami Heat. I guess they can catch a break sometimes, maybe.

Could the Miami Heat receive a Disabled Player Exception over Meyers Leonard’s injury?

The NBA always has certain provisions in place to protect against these types of unfortunate events. The one that should apply here is called the Disabled Player Exception.

Again and note, we said “should”. According to all of the text, language, and rules, they should receive one if they apply and brighter thinking would only lead you to believe they would.

In that event, this would give the Miami Heat a bit of flexibility to fill the roster spot, while also potentially getting some much needed help in the first place. Though there is a ton out there on the exception, I tend to like this little blurb from Luke Adams of Hoopsrumors.com.

"A disabled player exception can be granted when an NBA team has a player go down with an injury deemed to be season-ending. The exception gives the club some additional spending flexibility, functioning almost as a cross between a traded player exception and a mid-level exception.We go into more detail on who qualifies for disabled player exceptions and how exactly they work in our glossary entry on the subject. But essentially, a DPE gives a team the opportunity to add an injury replacement by either signing a player to a one-year contract, trading for a player in the final year of his contract, or placing a waiver claim on a player in the final year of his contract.Because the rules related to disable player exceptions are somewhat restrictive and the exceptions themselves often aren’t worth a lot, they often simply expire without being used. Still, it’s worth keeping an eye on which disabled player exceptions have been granted, just in case."

The only key thing missing here, in my opinion, is the fact that the provision allows the team to use money that is equal to 50 percent of the injured player’s salary. In Leonard’s case for the Miami Heat, that would be just over $4.7 million, I’m thinking, as his listed salary is $9.4 million for this season.

So, while this isn’t great news for the Miami Heat and especially Meyers Leonard, as we hope the shoulder gets back to 100 percent or better, they can perhaps get really crafty with the money and roster space afforded to them. We have a guy at the helm who is pretty capable and I look forward to seeing if he can get something done with it.