SATURDAY, 4:56pm: All three players have been officially waived, the team announced.
8:47pm: All three players have been waived, according to the RealGM transactions log. No announcement from the team has been made yet.
THURSDAY, 11:58am: The Heat are waiving Larry Drew II, Tyler Johnson and Shawn Jones, as coach Erik Spoelstra told reporters today, including Ira Winderman of the Sun Sentinel (Twitter link). The team has yet to make a formal announcement, but Miami hopes that all three will sign with its D-League affiliate, tweets Jason Lieser of The Palm Beach Post. The Heat has a $75K partial guarantee with Johnson and $25K with Drew, so the team will be on the hook for those amounts assuming they clear waivers. Jones has been on a non-guaranteed pact.
The athletic Johnson appeared in only one preseason game, but he performed well, scoring 17 points and coming up with four steals in more than 36 minutes of action. Jones averaged 3.0 points in 16.5 minutes per game in four preseason contests, while Drew, who signed on Monday, hasn’t played in any of the team’s exhibitions. Johnson and Jones went undrafted this summer, while Drew spent much of last season with the Heat’s D-League affiliate after joining Miami for camp last year.
The moves will leave Miami with 16 players, including 11 with fully guaranteed contracts. Three others have partial guarantees, while Shannon Brown and Andre Dawkins are on non-guaranteed deals.
I’m going to guess that Khem Birch will be the final roster cut. Hopefully, all 4 of those guys stay with the D-League team. All of them were impressive, especially Birch and Johnson. Dawkins makes it over Birch b/c McRoberts and Hamilton will take up those big man spots, and we could use the depth at the 2 guard.