NBA Free Agency 2015: The Official Thread

[RexBoyWonder]

I'll just bite my tongue this once , Good day to you Pythagoras.

[JLop]

[tweet]https://twitter.com/JaniLane4Life/status/597410645865291776[/tweet]





Miami Heat: Is A Ray Allen Return Imminent?



Jun 11, 2013; San Antonio, TX, USA; From left to right, center Chris Bosh, shooting guard Dwyane Wade, point guard Mario Chalmers, and shooting guard Ray Allen react during the fourth quarter of game three of the 2013 NBA Finals against the San Antonio Spurs at the AT&T Center. Mandatory Credit: Soobum Im-USA TODAY Sports


Sometimes, in order to build a strong future, you might need to look to the past. For the Miami Heat, a return to their former status as NBA title contenders could be boosted by a reunion with veteran guard Ray Allen.

Following Miami’s poor showing in the 2014 NBA Finals, Allen weighed a return to the NBA. Rumors regularly swirled that he would join LeBron James and other former Heat teammates in Cleveland.

He was also linked to a number of playoff-caliber squads (among them Washington, San Antonio and the Clippers) as many hoped he’d be a key addition that might cement a team’s championship aspirations.

Instead, he anticlimactically chose to sit out the entire 2014-15 season.

Allen has never formally retired, nor has he given any indication of where — or if — he might play again. But recent photos with former Heat teammates indicate that ties to the franchise are still strong.




Moreover, rejoining the team with which he won a title in 2013 makes more sense that you realize.

The Heat need quality depth in the backcourt. When Dwyane Wade missed several games due to injury prior to the All-Star break, there was a significant drop-off in production. Heat head coach Erik Spoelstra tried to fill the gap with different players, including Mario Chalmers, Shabazz Napier and Tyler Johnson.

But none could come close to the providing the same level of consistent scoring as Wade.

It was this weakness that led, at least in part, to the midseason acquisition of Goran Dragic from the Phoenix Suns. Once Wade returned to the lineup, pairing him with Dragic would send the trio of Chalmers, Napier and Johnson back to a more deserving reserve role.

And while Chalmers in particular had shown some promise as a backup to Wade, adding Allen to the fold would undoubtedly be an upgrade.

The first step for Miami is to re-sign Dragic, a free agent, back for next season. Reports indicate that Dragic is eager to stay with the Heat and team president Pat Riley has made it a key priority this summer.

That would allow Chalmers to slide back into his familiar role as a point guard (albeit as a backup) if the team were to sign Allen, who would be slated to back up Wade just as he did in the 2013-14 season.

Allen would, in addition to his otherworldly perimeter shooting, provide incredible veteran leadership to young players like Napier (like Allen, a University of Connecticut alum) and Johnson.

Some would scoff at the suggestion that Allen would consider joining Miami. The commonly-held belief is that he is interested in only joining a true title contender and the Heat, though poised to improve, might not fit that description. But that belief has never confirmed or stated by Allen himself.

It could be that a return to Miami, alongside friends and a coaching staff that have worked well with him, might be all he’s really looking for.

There are also doubts that the 39-year Allen is equipped handle life in the league after an 18-year career. No one knows for sure (there’s always the chance that joining any team might be a failed experiment) but if he’s committed to a return, the obsessive Allen will certainly do whatever’s necessary to play at a high level.

He still stays in incredible shape, and follows a strict diet and workout regimen that players half his age couldn’t maintain.

[instagram]https://instagram.com/p/1reUpegZa_/[/instagram]

In the end, there’s nothing but speculation regarding what Allen’s next steps will be. They might lead to Miami, Cleveland or, perhaps, to continuing a well-deserved retirement.

But should he elect to play in the NBA again, rejoining Miami makes sense in many ways.

And if he doesn’t, well then there will always be fond memories of Allen in a Heat uniform for South Florida fans to keep in mind.

Ray Allen Clutch Three Pointers Mix of 2012-13 NBA Season


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[KingDavid]

Speculating a 40 year old ray allen...

Boy do we need a SG or what lols

[JLop]

Speculating a 40 year old ray allen...

Boy do we need a SG or what lols

True. A shooting guard who can shoot from beyond the arc is our biggest need. Someone who can take over Wade's duties when he is missing games because of injuries. A shooting guard capable of playing as a small forward as well. Sadly, those kind of players are hard to find or too expensive. This is what makes Mario Hezonja, a good fit for the team. He already knows his role with the second unit. Hezonja has good size for both positions (small forward and shooting guard). On top of that, he is a good shooter from beyond the arc. Nevertheless, a player like Ray Allen will do wonders for us.



This is a question from a Heat fan to Ira Winderman:


ASK IRA: Does Wade's next contract hold key to Heat future?


MAY 13, 2015

Q: Pat Riley's moves with Hassan Whiteside and Goran Dragic were brilliant, but I fear we're locked in a good-but-not-great period, cap-limited from pursuing a free-agent superstar. -- Daniel.

A: Actually, Dwyane Wade will make that decision, based on his next contract, whether that comes this offseason or the 2016 offseason. If Wade agrees to trade dollars for years, and if Whiteside waits the one more year needed for full Bird Rights, the Heat could have room for a max offer to a free agent in the 2016 offseason. Yes there are plenty of moving parts, but there also is Pat Riley, no state income tax and balmy winters. Wade has worked with the Heat at just about every turn, so there is reason to believe he again will balance dollars against the opportunity to succeed in South Florida.

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[KingDavid]

IRA is going full-stupid. If we have Whiteside wait one year for full birds rights, he'll be a 7 NBA year free agent and he'll be eligible for the 30% max contract. Bosh is already at super max at 35% of cap. Dragic is seemingly going to be at 25%. Now with IRA's plan to have Hassan at 30%?!

That's 90% of the goddamned cap on three players!

That's not including Dwyane Wade!

[Chalm Down]

IRA is going full-stupid. If we have Whiteside wait one year for full birds rights, he'll be a 7 NBA year free agent and he'll be eligible for the 30% max contract. Hell **** no. Keep him at 25% max.

Not only that, but I see no reason why Whiteside would want to wait the extra year to get paid. Doesn't seem like a smart risk for him.

[heat4life]

Hassan is shopping for a $9 mil home already.. I doubt he waits..

[Flash4thewin]

IRA is going full-stupid. If we have Whiteside wait one year for full birds rights, he'll be a 7 NBA year free agent and he'll be eligible for the 30% max contract. Bosh is already at super max at 35% of cap. Dragic is seemingly going to be at 25%. Now with IRA's plan to have Hassan at 30%?!

That's 90% of the goddamned cap on three players!

That's not including Dwyane Wade!

IRA is making Beasley look smart

Whiteside is going to get paid period. My fear is if we have another off season with every team in the league getting Cap space Whiteside is the perfect player to poach. Just because a player is buying a house doesnt mean he will be signing with the Heat.

[Burnie Riley]

IRA is going full-stupid. If we have Whiteside wait one year for full birds rights, he'll be a 7 NBA year free agent and he'll be eligible for the 30% max contract. Bosh is already at super max at 35% of cap. Dragic is seemingly going to be at 25%. Now with IRA's plan to have Hassan at 30%?!

That's 90% of the goddamned cap on three players!

That's not including Dwyane Wade!

IRA is making Beasley look smart

Whiteside is going to get paid period. My fear is if we have another off season with every team in the league getting Cap space Whiteside is the perfect player to poach. Just because a player is buying a house doesnt mean he will be signing with the Heat.

Ira's not the only one. The guy from the Palm Beach Post doesn't seem to understand the salary cap at all. First he wrote a report saying maybe we'll go after Demarre Carrol. I'll excuse that, maybe he doesn't know that we have no cap space even if Deng leaves. But then he writes an article suggesting going after Marc Gasol. Then he has the balls, the temerity, the chutzpah, to suggest that Whiteside might be convinced to agree to delay his free agency for one more year to help us out.

[Chalm Down]

IRA is going full-stupid. If we have Whiteside wait one year for full birds rights, he'll be a 7 NBA year free agent and he'll be eligible for the 30% max contract. Bosh is already at super max at 35% of cap. Dragic is seemingly going to be at 25%. Now with IRA's plan to have Hassan at 30%?!

That's 90% of the goddamned cap on three players!

That's not including Dwyane Wade!

IRA is making Beasley look smart

Whiteside is going to get paid period. My fear is if we have another off season with every team in the league getting Cap space Whiteside is the perfect player to poach. Just because a player is buying a house doesnt mean he will be signing with the Heat.

Ira's not the only one. The guy from the Palm Beach Post doesn't seem to understand the salary cap at all. First he wrote a report saying maybe we'll go after Demarre Carrol. I'll excuse that, maybe he doesn't know that we have no cap space even if Deng leaves. But then he writes an article suggesting going after Marc Gasol. Then he has the balls, the temerity, the chutzpah, to suggest that Whiteside might be convinced to agree to delay his free agency for one more year to help us out.

That's just terrible "journalism." Doing it for the page clicks, I guess.

[puppa bear]

IRA is going full-stupid. If we have Whiteside wait one year for full birds rights, he'll be a 7 NBA year free agent and he'll be eligible for the 30% max contract. Bosh is already at super max at 35% of cap. Dragic is seemingly going to be at 25%. Now with IRA's plan to have Hassan at 30%?!

That's 90% of the goddamned cap on three players!

That's not including Dwyane Wade!

Except we can go over the cap to sign him, so it wouldn't matter at that point. The idea would be to have him & Wade willing to sign contracts that would leave enough for a big name FA in 2016, but with opt-outs after 1 year, where we could resign them for better value on longer contracts & be able to go over the cap.

For example:
We sign Goran this year to $20m per for 5 years, then we'd have about $52m committed (unless we sign anyone other than our 1st round pick for more than 1 year) in a year when the cap is projected to be around $90m. It's not completely inconceivable that Hassan takes $10m for 2 with an opt out after 1 year, & Wade takes $5m for 2 with the same opt out. That would leave just under $25m to attract an All-Star SF.

Big issue: Unless Kawhi take the QO, then Batum is probably the best SF FA in 2016 without an MVP trophy (who would be fetching closer to $30m than $25m). Meaning that even if we could manage to convince Hassan & Wade to sign at lower numbers for 1 year then we would be asking we'd need to sign Hassan to much lower or there wouldn't be the players worth asking them to do it for.

[KingDavid]

IRA is going full-stupid. If we have Whiteside wait one year for full birds rights, he'll be a 7 NBA year free agent and he'll be eligible for the 30% max contract. Bosh is already at super max at 35% of cap. Dragic is seemingly going to be at 25%. Now with IRA's plan to have Hassan at 30%?!

That's 90% of the goddamned cap on three players!

That's not including Dwyane Wade!

Except we can go over the cap to sign him, so it wouldn't matter at that point. The idea would be to have him & Wade willing to sign contracts that would leave enough for a big name FA in 2016, but with opt-outs after 1 year, where we could resign them for better value on longer contracts & be able to go over the cap.

For example:
We sign Goran this year to $20m per for 5 years, then we'd have about $52m committed (unless we sign anyone other than our 1st round pick for more than 1 year) in a year when the cap is projected to be around $90m. It's not completely inconceivable that Hassan takes $10m for 2 with an opt out after 1 year, & Wade takes $5m for 2 with the same opt out. That would leave just under $25m to attract an All-Star SF.

Big issue: Unless Kawhi take the QO, then Batum is probably the best SF FA in 2016 without an MVP trophy (who would be fetching closer to $30m than $25m). Meaning that even if we could manage to convince Hassan & Wade to sign at lower numbers for 1 year then we would be asking we'd need to sign Hassan to much lower or there wouldn't be the players worth asking them to do it for.

I caught hassan inquiring about a house in SW Ranches worth $9.5 million a couple of days ago.

We don't have his bird rights and a lot of teams will offer him the very max contact he will be worth next season which is $18.x million. After signing a PG to $20 million per year, you think a player who's position is more valuable is going to take HALF?! After playing in a country where he witnessed people die from a car bomb? That is ludicrous. Hassan signs your $10 million contract and then gets hurt, guess who's not getting a max contact any more? It's not worth that risk.

Dwyane Wade signing for $5 million. Not even going to touch that one.

Why do you think kawhi would leave the team that has his bird rights?

[Burnie Riley]

Let's not forget his motto is "only eat with who you starved with" It'll buy us some points that we gave him a chance this season, but not that much because when he was starving they chose Dexter Pittman over him and then two years later they chose Josh Harellson over him.

[RJM]

Ray's not coming back. He's retiring. If anything, he'll be Devin Booker's mentor if he becomes Miami's choice next month.

[puppa bear]

Except we can go over the cap to sign him, so it wouldn't matter at that point. The idea would be to have him & Wade willing to sign contracts that would leave enough for a big name FA in 2016, but with opt-outs after 1 year, where we could resign them for better value on longer contracts & be able to go over the cap.

For example:
We sign Goran this year to $20m per for 5 years, then we'd have about $52m committed (unless we sign anyone other than our 1st round pick for more than 1 year) in a year when the cap is projected to be around $90m. It's not completely inconceivable that Hassan takes $10m for 2 with an opt out after 1 year, & Wade takes $5m for 2 with the same opt out. That would leave just under $25m to attract an All-Star SF.

Big issue: Unless Kawhi take the QO, then Batum is probably the best SF FA in 2016 without an MVP trophy (who would be fetching closer to $30m than $25m). Meaning that even if we could manage to convince Hassan & Wade to sign at lower numbers for 1 year then we would be asking we'd need to sign Hassan to much lower or there wouldn't be the players worth asking them to do it for.

I caught hassan inquiring about a house in SW Ranches worth $9.5 million a couple of days ago.

We don't have his bird rights and a lot of teams will offer him the very max contact he will be worth next season which is $18.x million. After signing a PG to $20 million per year, you think a player who's position is more valuable is going to take HALF?! After playing in a country where he witnessed people die from a car bomb? That is ludicrous. Hassan signs your $10 million contract and then gets hurt, guess who's not getting a max contact any more? It's not worth that risk.

Dwyane Wade signing for $5 million. Not even going to touch that one.

Why do you think kawhi would leave the team that has his bird rights?[/ quote]
My whole point was that it is possible - not that it's likely, but that it is possible. (I forgot how explicit I need to be when correcting false assumptions - which here was that the situation Ira proposed was not possible due to cap restraints).

I was using Kawhi (who I think won't do anything except sign with Spurs) to point out that even if a miracle did happen & we had money to spend we'd need $30m to go after Durant/Bron and be looking at Batum as the consolation prize at SF - who's nowhere near enough incentive for those players to give up that type of money.

[KingDavid]

Sorry that i missed your point. Tbh I was at work and only quickly glanced.

Making things probable should be relative though. What's the point if we're not being realistic?

Your method would still eventually have 90% of the cap in three players, still not including Wade. The dollar amount in cap doesn't matter, that will fluctuate. It's the percentages that matter due to the sudden and severe spike in cap that's occurring. Bosh's contract will still be 30%. It'll just be 30% of that year's cap and it'll increase from there. Along with the vet minimum, rookie contracts, mid-level, and mini mid-level contracts. You go over 100% for over a season, Bird's rights or not, (multiple long term contracts) then you end up in repeater's tax. That's what made keeping Mike Miller spike to ~$20 million out of Arison's pockets.

If the owners allow the rise in cap to go unadjusted, it'll quickly be the death of small market teams. The owners are well aware of that. The players want more money with the increased revenue as well -not just the stars either.

Of course I could be completely wrong about this...

[puppa bear]

Your method would still eventually have 90% of the cap in three players, still not including Wade. The dollar amount in cap doesn't matter, that will fluctuate. It's the percentages that matter due to the sudden and severe spike in cap that's occurring. Bosh's contract will still be 30%. It'll just be 30% of that year's cap and it'll increase from there.

This is actually the bit that's wrong - just because the player qualified for a max contract of 30% of the cap & signed for that starting amount that doesn't mean they take that amount each year.

True max contracts fluctuate with the cap, are tied to certain achievements (like All-NBA, etc), and there is only 1 or 2 players who have those (I think Durant & Rose). Other players have signed for the max starting salary, with annual raises on the starting salary; or starting salary above their max, but 105% of their previous years salary (Kobe's previous contract for example).

Bosh signed for 105% his previous salary, which was over the max for a player of his experience - this means Bosh's number is fixed at $23m for 2016, regardless of the cap. Meaning we will have about $32m plus Goran spent of the cap before dealing with Wade & Whiteside. Whiteside will get the max (starting salary) contract when he resigns.

Max starting salaries are percentage, but the CBA allows ways around them & it ends up clearer (but sometimes harder to hold in your head easily) to think in raw $.

[KingDavid]

Your method would still eventually have 90% of the cap in three players, still not including Wade. The dollar amount in cap doesn't matter, that will fluctuate. It's the percentages that matter due to the sudden and severe spike in cap that's occurring. Bosh's contract will still be 30%. It'll just be 30% of that year's cap and it'll increase from there.

This is actually the bit that's wrong - just because the player qualified for a max contract of 30% of the cap & signed for that starting amount that doesn't mean they take that amount each year.

True max contracts fluctuate with the cap, are tied to certain achievements (like All-NBA, etc), and there is only 1 or 2 players who have those (I think Durant & Rose). Other players have signed for the max starting salary, with annual raises on the starting salary; or starting salary above their max, but 105% of their previous years salary (Kobe's previous contract for example).

Bosh signed for 105% his previous salary, which was over the max for a player of his experience - this means Bosh's number is fixed at $23m for 2016, regardless of the cap. Meaning we will have about $32m plus Goran spent of the cap before dealing with Wade & Whiteside. Whiteside will get the max (starting salary) contract when he resigns.

Max starting salaries are percentage, but the CBA allows ways around them & it ends up clearer (but sometimes harder to hold in your head easily) to think in raw $.

Ohhhh!!!

Thank you for the correction. So when/if the CBA changes for the rise in cap, the previously signed contracts remain at the same dollar amount since that amount was signed under a then-old rule?

[JLop]

If Whiteside waits the one more year needed for full Bird Rights, Hassan won't lose any money. If Whiteside signs a 4 year contract in 2016 a max contract offer for Hassan would look something like 4 yr(s) / $89.84. If Whiteside waits the one more year needed for full Bird Rights, a max contract offer for Whiteside would look something like 5 yr(s) / $121.97. Without the full Bird Rights other teams (Miami included) can only offer annual raises of 4.5 percent. Now, with the full Bird Rights, Whiteside is eligible for 7.5 percent raise in each year of his contract. Keeping this in mind, Hassan can sign a one year contract in the range between $10 million and $14 million. And for the 2017-18 season, when the cap is projected to reach $108 million, with his full Bird Rights Whiteside can sign a contract of 5 yr(s) / $121.97. Or perhaps even higher.

[MettaWorldPanda]

I would love to sign Ray Allen back and draft Devin Booker. The things Booker can learn from Ray would be priceless. We can give Wade an abundance of rest next year. Imagine Dragic running the break with Booker and Allen OMG. We would have a poor man's splash bro's tandem.