lilfishi22 wrote:JDLAW, you probably know this but now that the Miami Big 3 have opted out, do Miami still have any sort of Bird rights for those three players? And the appropriate cap holds for those rights? Or do they have any particular contractual advantages over other teams vying for Lebron's service?
Miami still have Bird rights until they are renounced. They will all have cap holds up to the max amount they are permitted to be paid under the CBA or about $22M/yr (rounded off). Once Miami has its act together they will renounce all of the cap holds and resign them - assuming they decide to stay.
The one thing that might throw a monkey wrench into Miami's plans is that James is demanding the maximum he can get (supposedly) That means Bosh and Wade have to take more significant pay cuts if the Heat are going to add any expensive talent. The Heat appear to have about $8M in salary they could not clear off the books and at a $63M limit, if James takes $22M + and there is another $8M it adds up to $30M to fill that roster. Since the Bird exceptions for Bosh and Wade have to be waived to achieve any sort of cap room, adding a modest, $8M free agent (e.g. Lowrey or Gortat) would bring them up to $38M leaving Bosh and Wade to split $25M. That is quite a cut for both of them.
Things are going to be tight in Miami.
By the way everyone talks about Dallas they have a similar problem. It appears that the Mavs have $23-24M cap space, depending on who you believe, but this is illusory because to get that cap space the MAvs have to renounce Dirk's Bird rights. Once they do that, they have to sign Dirk AND what ever free agent they seek into that $24M. Dirk will take a cut, but not down to a couple of million. This is why Cuban came out and said he would not be offering a max contract this summer. He cannot realistically do so and keep Dirk.
