JULY 14th: The deal is now official, the team has announced. Of the signing, Heat president Pat Riley said, “One of our main priorities this offseason was obtaining a proven veteran like Danny with All-Star experience. We expect him to be a multi-position player and have a very successful season in our system.”
JULY 7th: The Heat and Danny Granger have struck a two-year, $4.2MM deal, reports Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports. It’ll be for the bi-annual exception and it’ll include a player option in year two.
It’s the second agreement Miami has reached today after securing a deal with Josh McRoberts for the non-taxpayer’s mid-level exception. Granger, the long-time Pacers star, comes to Miami after finishing last season with the Clippers, largely failing to regain his scoring prowess after missing almost all of 2012/13 with injury.
In 41 combined games for the Pacers and Clippers last season, Granger averaged 8.2 PPG and 3.6 RPG in 20.7 minutes per contest. His total PER amounted to 10.9 and that was boosted by a small uptick in his dozen games with the Clippers.
The Wizards, Suns, and Clippers have been among the teams that have reached out to Granger since the start of free agency. Obviously, the former All-Star has lost a step or three in recent years but the Heat will be delighted if the 31-year-old can at least gain some of that form back. Excluding these last two forgettable seasons, Granger averaged 18.2 PPG and 5.2 RPG.
Wojnarowski reports that Granger was willing to take less than market value for the chance to join up with LeBron James in Miami which would imply that he was offered more elsewhere.
Anyone else think that at the very least Riley has Granger and McBob convinced that LeBron is coming back? Even if a return isn’t 100% at this point, sure seems to me like these signings imply that Riley has made a good sell to these two that LBJ is coming back to Miami.
I don’t know if the plan is for Granger to start at SF, but he definitely could be a strong addition to their rotation. Deng and Ariza seemed to be far too expensive for the Heat, and of the remaining options getting Granger for cheap made the most sense.
Absolutely. He’s not a better player than either of those guys at this point, but I’d much rather have Granger at $2.1M per year than Deng at $10-12M or Ariza at $8-10M.
I would rather have Ariza or Deng, and then fill the roster, using the mid level exception, the other allotted exceptions, and minimum players. I posted this the other day: disappointed that Sefolosha is off the market (and he signed for more money than I thought he’d get), as well as Spencer Hawes (and he signed for way less than I thought he’d get). Still, if the Heat could get 1 of Deng or Ariza Shawn Marion, Anthony Morrow or another wing player (preferably an athletic defensive type guy, worst case Caron Butler, Al Farouq Aminu, or James Ennis could possibly come over), and a Birdman type big (energy, blocking shots, run the floor) then they’re good to go. Thats probably a lot to ask at this point with the way the market has been looking with all of these overpays on marginal players. These last couple of days arent looking too good for the Heat, but I’m obviously going to wait until things actually happen…I did feel like it wasnt looking good to get our needs, but we needed to at least go hard on Ariza or Deng until that was over. They were priority #1
Bringing back the big 3 and signing Deng to the 12 mill he wanted was impossible since the Big 3 would have to take 3 big pay-cuts
That and Deng just isn’t worth $12M.
They would have had to take paycuts, but not too much of a paycut in the long run. Ya, I’ve said they shouldnt have to take a paycut, and nobody should ask them to. I will acknowledge though that for this team to do what it needed to do, it was necessary for them to take slightly less on the front end….
if LeBron signed a 3 year/$62 million deal (Year 1 $20mil/Year 2 $21mil/Year 3 $21mil) with 2 player options worth $22 million on the back of that, Chris Bosh signed a 4 Year/$64 million deal (Year 1 $15mil/Year 2 $15mil/Year 3 $17mil/Year 4 $17mil) with a player option on the back of that worth $18 million, Dwyane Wade signed a 3 year/$44-47 million deal (Year 1 $12-15mil/Year 2 $15mil/Year 3 $17mil) with 2 player options at the back of that worth $16&17 million respectively on the back of that. That would put us around $50 million committed, and would leave us somewhere between $10-15 million in cap space depending on what the cap is increasing to this year. We also should have the mid level exception and other exceptions that we could use if we need to.
Dont like this
Care to elaborate?
doesnt help them with any of their needs; same can be said for McRoberts.
LeBron’s kept less talented players than Granger in the league before (Daniel Gibson, Damon Jones, etc.). Tend to agree with you about McRoberts, although he provides an interesting dynamic. Making more than I would care to pay him though.
His poor shooting % last year is going to scare Heat fans, but advanced stats loved his defense, and he has a strong offensive track record
McBob and Granger are already an upgrade to Haslem and Battier.
granger could be an upgrade but thats only if he puts the work in the granger from last year was trash