The majority of the player movement for the offseason is pretty much in the books, but one big-name free agent is still technically on the open market. And if the Miami Heat truly wanted to make a splash move this summer, the opportunity to surprisingly make a move for Jonathan Kuminga still very much exists.
According to ESPN's Shams Charania, it's the Sacramento Kings and Phoenix Suns who have been the most serious of late about a move for Kuminga, but the Heat did have some level of interest in the budding star earlier in the offseason.
At this point, you can't help but wonder if Miami may kick the tires and revisit those talks if there's a chance Kuminga could be had for the right price. Shams also added that Kuminga is in no rush to sign a deal with the Golden State Warriors, leaving the door even more slightly open for a team like the Heat to jump in last minute.
Should the Heat revisit the Kuminga talks?
At this point, the biggest headache appears with teams negotiating with the Warriors. After all, Kuminga is a restricted free agent and, with all the free-agency money dried up across the league, would have to make his way to a new team via sign and trade.
The Warriors are seemingly playing hardball at the moment.
Assuming this is the case, it wouldn't hurt the Heat to check back in with Golden State. Of course, that's if the Heat still has genuine interest in Kuminga. If the price is low enough, I'd imagine that would be the case. Admittedly, that's pretty difficult to admit one way or another right now.
But if there's a scenario in which the Heat wants to go rogue and take a flier on Kuminga, and he's willing to take a team-friendly deal, perhaps it would be worth Miami jumping back in on the sweepstakes.
While it hasn't been clear how interested the Heat actually were in Kuminga earlier this summer, there was some smoke surrounding this possibility. And generally in the NBA, where there's smoke, there's fire.
Knowing that the Heat likes to do much of its work in the shadows, it would not be the least surprising if they were backchanneling a bit.
In the end, the price tag for Kuminga from the Warriors might be too high, and maybe they're not willing to sacrifice future financial flexibility for him. That would be totally fair and understandable.
However, if the Heat did still want to make a big splash before the start of the 2025-26 NBA season, Kuminga is still surprisingly right there for the taking.