What´s going on in Miami

[Heat3]

Dragic's contract is fine.

Whiteside's is horrible considering the system put in by the coach and his decision to not play him. I don't understand Spo's decision making here. It neither uses Whiteside's skills to their potential nor does it help us get rid of him.

TJ's contract sucks. Should have never matched but Riley was told to by the owner. He even brought it up in the press conference when they announced the contract match. He subtly let out that the owner didn't want to lose TJ...which lead me to believe that Riley wasn't happy about it. Oh well.

The other guys are ok. My biggest issue is that Spo coaches to win regular season games and not to develop guys. We have a bunch of guys with roughly the same skillset and positions. They all get the same amount of minutes. No one moves ahead of the pack but Spo gets credit for winning some games with no names.

As it is we'll probably just be back of the pack playoff teams for the next 2 years then start over again.

[Feel_the_Heat15]

Capped out with average players on big long term contracts. Two future picks traded. What can they do?

Trading Dragic to get rid off some toxic contracts should be in consideration IMO.

And what was Pat Riley thinking when he offered average guys such contracts?

They're plenty of contracts much worse than ours. Over 75% of NBA teams have/had bad contracts this year they disliked.

[TacoLord]

It's just proof that LeBron is a better GM than Pat Riley.

[RoyceDa59]

Miami will tank for 2-3 years, hopefully luck out and grab a few studs in the draft, wait for massive cap space and try to sign a big name FA or two to go along with their young studs. It's the new formula for super team creation in the modern NBA, and Miami is definitely a desired destination, and Riley is a boss, so they're one of about 8 or so franchises that can actually pull it off.

[Mich3006]

Shouldn’t have matched Tyler Johnson offer sheet.
Shouldn’t have given Dragic and Whiteside that much money.
Should have traded the draft rights to Justise Winslow to Boston and get more draft picks out of it.

I still can´t believe Boston offered 4 picks and Miami declined it.

[macNcheese3]

Well they don’t really have any cap friendly or appealing pieces in general to make any moves.

[Nuggets_Talk]

according to FTH...nothing but perfection. expect titles soon.

[SlowPaced]

James Johnson and Kelly Olynyk's deals aren't bad, neither is Dragic's.

Paying Hassan Whiteside, Dion Waiters and Tyler Johnson 56 million per is the real killer.

[djizo]

Everything backfired when the Heat went all in on Dragic and on basically the same day blood clots were discovered with Chris Bosh... In theory that team had a great starting 5 of a (young and energetic, triple double with blocks type of guy) Whiteside, Bosh, Deng (who was still a very solid 3 and D player), Wade and Dragic... But once that failed, they didn't manage to pick themselves back up.

So i guess they are going to try and be competitive again, and will battle for the 10-6th seed in the East. They can't really tank, and they can't really win a championship, but only one team of 30 wins, so if you can have some nice playoff battles it's not a lost season imo

Basically this. They invested their future into that line-up which -- I'm not completely sure about this -- never actually played together.

They were promising: Bosh and Dragic were in their primes, Wade was slightly over it, but still excellent. If they meshed well, that team could have done lots of damage. I had them as a kind of a dark horse contender once I learnt about the team. (That moment did not last long, though.)

It fell apart, mostly due to Bosh's health issues: they were left without their best player which at the same time was on a max contract.

Then they put a lot of hopes into Winslow, and that did not pan out as expected.

And then there were contracts for Waiters, TJ and the curious case of Whiteside.