Free agency is where the Heat look to re-tool and they need to. The Eastern Conference is a wide gully stretched out before them but the Championship belt resides in the West and if Miami wants it back they need to get better. Bosh, Lebron, Wade, Haslem all opted out of their deals. (Ideally Haslem will retire and the Heat can save $5m on the Cap next year but since he opted out of the last year of his deal I'm guessing that means he'll want something like 2 years at $3m; I'd rather pay Haslem that money to come to the games wearing flashy suits, sitting court side with Riles and Zo and Jimmy Buffett or else bring Haslem back as the highest paid strength coach in the league. But he thinks he can still play so you gotta pay him--oh yeah, Haslem is definitely juiced in with the Miami mafia!) If they can get those guys to come back at bargain rates then they'll have something like an extra $17m to bring in free agents. Is that Carmelo money? I say no. (In fact, I say haaaaaaa-il no!)
A modest suggestion for 4 free agent targets: Rodney Stuckey, Patrick Patterson, Dejuan Blair, Paul Pierce. Stuckey is veteran stability off the bench, Patterson is the young blue collar guy that does the dirty work, Blair is the big body that clogs the lane on D allowing the weakside shot blockers to re-appear (and a Spur killer), Pierce is the star power to get the reporters all jazzed up; and I'd re-sign Michael Beasley. Stuckey and Pierce would have to play for less money but they'd breeze through the East so surely you can lure them in with promises of playoff bonuses; Blair is still pretty cheap, Patterson still young enough to be affordable (though only the Raptors can retain his Bird rights), Beasley still desperately at the end of his rope. Work in Cole, Haslem, Napier and Anderson and you've got size, speed, tough youth, savvy veterans, scoring off the bench, and the physical presence in the paint that your big three need to compete with the Spurs or Thunder.
What you really need to do, Heat, is to double-deal Wade and get rid of Haslem. I know, I know, nobody ever wants to do the cutthroat stuff but Wade is killing y'all and if you give him 4 years/$60m that is a big ol' Stoudamire hanging around your neck if you think you're gonna keep Lebron happy for 4 more years. Bosh will get antsy and Lebron doesn't have to hang around to the bitter end, he can do the hired gun at the end of his career, I think he'd be happy to give up the ball and the spotlight to get some open shots, some easy defensive assignments, and a ride on someone else's coattails deep into the playoffs--I can totally see that.
I thought this was the summer when it all broke up. Lebron would go back to Cleveland, Bosh would go to the Lakers, Wade would sign one more 2 year deal and hobble around for mega-money, Riley would retire, Haslem and Battier and Allen and Rashard Lewis would retire, the whole thing would be turned into a TV movie, with only Spoelstra left behind desperately trying to re-make himself. But the Spurs interrupted the love fest finale, the Cavs are showing themselves to be utterly inept at picking talent, and the Lakers are currently being Stoudamire-d by a horse named Kobe, so none of those options became available. Lebron to the Clippers? *Pphhht* no way. Lebron either goes back to Cleveland or he stays in Miami; when Wade and Riley finally head on and Bosh is itching to find a new crew, then Lebron could do the hired gun thing for a few years but other than Cleveland there's no place he'd leave Miami for.
The re-up deals could work something like this: 4 year/$60m for Wade, 2 years/$30m for Lebron, 2 years/$6m for Haslem...but what about Bosh? Does Bosh get Wade's 4-year deal or Lebron's 2-year deal? All the talk of mega-deals, blockbuster free agent moves, and greedy draft order shuffling that we've endured this year might all come back next year if Lebron and/or Bosh and/or Carmelo end up going back to their teams with 2-year deals with a 1-year opt out. The speculation would continue on into summer 2015 when Lebron, Melo and Bosh....sign another round of 2-year/1-year opt out deals...and summer of 2016 looks just like the last one and the one before. Oh well, a good time to be a commentator!
* The Hornets (nee Bobcats) gave Miami the #24 pick (Shabazz Napier) and in return got #26 (PJ Hairston), a 2nd round pick (#55), a 2019 2nd round pick and 'cash considerations'. They then traded #55 to OKC for 'cash considerations'. We'll dispose of the other pick (a 2019 2nd round pick is, if you think about it, the farthest off into the future that a team can transact, thus it is the LEAST tangible commodity in the entire universe of basketball), and let's recap: the Hornets got the guy they wanted (PJ Hairston) at a nominally lower price point and they got paid by two teams to do it. You wonder why people do favors for the Heat or the Thunder, it's because they get PAID to.
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