12:48am: In an update to his story, Wojnarowski writes that Bosh, Wade, and Udonis Haslem have the framework of deals in place to remain with Miami, arming Riley with his limitations within the salary cap to sign talent, league sources told Yahoo Sports.
“Everybody has their [contract] number and has left a little bit of room to let [Riley] maneuver,” one source briefed on the contract discussions said.
With that bit of space, Riley plans to look into free agents including Marcin Gortat and Marvin Williams.
8:16pm: As free agency starts, LeBron James, Chris Bosh, and Dwyane Wade plan to give Pat Riley a window to enact his plan for upgrading the team’s supporting cast, sources tell Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo Sports (on Twitter).
Of course, much of what Riley can do will depend on how much breathing room he has to operate with. There was some hope that James would take less than the max deal to help the Heat reload, but earlier today we learned that’s not in the cards. LeBron met with Wade and Bosh to discuss salaries over the weekend, so it will be up to Wade and Bosh to take discounts if the Heat are going to add a free agent of note this summer. Both Bosh and Wade, along with LeBron, took less than the max to sign with Miami in 2010, so it remains to be seen if they’ll take another pay cut.
Teams will be blowing up all three of their phones when the clock strikes midnight tonight, but LeBron, Wade, and Bosh will give Miami an opportunity to prepare a battle plan before they consider going elsewhere.
Its obviously going to depend on what happens with LeBron/Wade/Bosh, and I wont expect them to take pay-cuts or stay. If they do though, I would especially want the Heat to target Spencer Hawes, Luol Deng, Trevor Ariza, Shawn Marion, Thabo Sefolosha, among others. If they were to get 3 of those guys, that would be amazing, but the demand for a couple of them should be pretty high. Whatever happens, I trust Pat Riley to make the moves necessary, especially if given the resources to do it
Their main issue was lacking support behind LeBron. Wade was up and down a lot. They need another guy to lean on the way they could with Wade is LeBron was having a tough night. Now, is Wade done? No, but his minutes need to be lowered considerably and more days off need to be given for him to stay a force.