The floodgates have re-opened after the NBA free agency bonanza was put on temporary hold until Kevin Durant made his decision to sign with the Golden State Warriors, who may have lost the NBA Finals but have won much, much more this summer. The Heat agreed to a four-year, million deal with Whiteside on the opening day of free-agency recruiting Friday, and Durant agreed to a two-year, $54 million deal to leave Oklahoma City for Golden State on Monday. He is scheduled to make $17.1 million next season. I’m not getting into how many years I want to play. Contract talks got tense last summer as well, but there never seemed to be a serious threat to lure him from the Heat and he ultimately signed a one-year, million deal.
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Last season Wade’s salary was the same $20 million that Miami is offering him again.
This comes after reports that the Milwaukee Bucks had arranged to meet with Wade on Wednesday. It’s a lot of moving parts in free agency.
Wade is scheduled to be in NY and guest-host “Live With Kelly” alongside Kelly Ripa on Thursday morning, which coincidentally is the day the NBA’s offseason moratorium on player movement expires and new contracts can be signed.
Milwaukee would have to make a move to create cap room to sign Wade, possibly by trading center Greg Monroe.
That may not be good enough for Wade considering that players at or near his talent and production level are earing higher salaries. Miami could try to sign Wade to a three-year contract that basically runs until the end of his career to avoid another contract dispute, but it would hurt the Heat’s spending flexibility moving forward. Miami also has a $2.9 million exception at their disposal.
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But that might be the cost of keeping the best player in franchise history happy.
