The Heat could have opened up more cap room for the upcoming season by using the waive-and-stretch provision but they passed on that option prior to Friday’s deadline, Anthony Chiang of the Miami Herald notes.
The most obvious candidate would have been Terry Rozier, as his contract carries a $26.7MM cap hit. They could have stretched that to $8.9MM over the next three seasons. However, there was less of a sense of urgency to do that once they traded Haywood Highsmith to the Nets.
Miami is approximately $1.7MM under the luxury tax threshold and around $7.2MM below the first apron. The Heat have 15 players signed to standard deals, including one training camp deal, but only 12 have fully guaranteed contracts as our Roster Counts display.
Here’s more on the Heat:
- Speaking of Rozier, it’s unlikely he’ll be part of the rotation if he remains on the roster, according to Ira Winderman of the Sun Sentinel. The Heat will likely go with younger players like Pelle Larsson, Jaime Jaquez Jr. and/or rookie Kasparas Jakucionis off the bench, rather than Rozier. The veteran could find his way into the mix if one of their wing scorers gets injured.
- Nikola Jovic had another solid outing in the EuroBasket tournament on Friday. He made all six of his field goal attempts while scoring 18 points during Serbia’s win over Portugal, Chiang tweets. He added six rebounds in 31 minutes.
- Simone Fontecchio, acquired from Detroit in the Duncan Robinson sign-and-trade, continued to struggle for Italy in its win over Georgia on Saturday. Fontecchio scored four points on 1-for-11 shooting in Italy’s opening game in EuroBasket. In Italy’s second tournament game, Fontecchio scored 14 points but missed all five of his 3-point attempts and committed six turnovers, Chiang relays (Twitter link).
- Larsson missed Sweden’s opener due to an illness but quickly bounced back. Larsson had 23 points on 8-of-17 shooting, four rebounds, two assists and two steals with five turnovers in a 78-59 victory over Great Britain, Winderman tweets.