8:40am: The Heat and Deng are still significantly apart on salary, tweets Brian Windhorst of ESPN.com. Deng has been turning down $10MM per season offers for months, notes Windhorst.
8:11am: In the wake of losing the talents of LeBron James to the Cavaliers, the Heat are scrambling to fill their void at small forward. Their primary target looks to be free agent Luol Deng, who James technically replaced in Cleveland. According to Marc Stein of ESPN.com, Miami has emerged as the frontrunner to land the veteran’s services.
Heat president Pat Riley and Deng’s agent Ron Shade spent significant time negotiating on Saturday and plan to reconnect this morning to continue working towards an agreement, writes Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports. The two sides are reportedly discussing a a two-year, $20MM contract, per the article. Miami is competing with several teams, including the Hawks, Suns and Mavericks, to sign Deng.
Deng’s career numbers are 16.0 PPG, 6.3 RPG, and 2.5 APG over ten NBA seasons. His career slash lines are .457/.329/.773.