Heat Notes: Waiters, Johnson, Offseason

Dion Waiters‘ new two-year deal with the Heat is worth a little under $6MM, which is less than he would have earned in the 2016/17 season alone if he had accepted his qualifying offer from the Thunder before Oklahoma City rescinded it. As Waiters explains in an Instagram post, he believes he could have waited out the market and “got what I wanted” in terms of salary, but he decided to join the Heat because he believes he’ll be happy in Miami.

“I didn’t do it for the money,” Waiters wrote. “I did it for the opportunity to go out & ball & have fun. Everything else will take care of its self!!! I just felt like it was the best situation for me…& my family.”

Here’s more on Waiters, along with some other Heat-related notes:

• According to Eric Pincus of Basketball Insiders (via Twitter), the Heat may have been close to extending an offer sheet to Waiters earlier in July, when he was still a restricted free agent. Miami ultimately used its cap room on other players, and was able to land Waiters at a lesser rate.
• Like most NBA observers, Tyler Johnson didn’t expect Dwyane Wade to leave Miami, and was therefore “almost 100% sure” that he’d end up in Brooklyn, writes Ira Winderman of The South Florida Sun Sentinel. But he’s happy to be back with the Heat and he’s still adjusting to the fact that he’s a $50MM player. “I threw up a couple of times when I heard the number go out there,” Johnson said. “I was in shock. I even lost a little bit of weight, because just the anxiety of going through that whole process and not knowing where I was going to be.”
• In his latest mailbags for the Sun Sentinel, Winderman discusses the big-picture fit for Waiters in Miami, and addresses some questions about the Heat’s offseason roster-building decisions.