7:08pm: Wade is in contract talks with the Knicks and Bucks, sources tell Brian Windhorst of ESPN.com (Twitter link). Wade has a meeting scheduled with the Bucks that will take place sometime next week, Charles F. Gardner of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports on Twitter. A meeting with the Knicks could take place next week as well, Windhorst adds.
Sources tell Ramona Shelburne of ESPN.com (Twitter link) that Wade wants to be compensated for the pay cuts he took in Miami. The Heat remain optimistic about bringing Wade back and their plan is not to replace him with Durant should the 2013/14 MVP sign with Miami. If that happens, the team would look to trade Goran Dragic and Josh McRoberts in an attempt to financially take care of Wade.
The Knicks likely won’t have the cap space necessary to provide Wade with his desired contract, after agreeing to sign Joakim Noah to a four-year, $72MM deal, as Sam Amick of USA Today tweets. Of course, Noah’s deal won’t be finalized until after the moratorium, so the possibility of the big man agreeing to take less with the intent of bringing Wade to New York exists.
Wade seems like a strange fit for the Bucks, but he did play his college basketball at nearby Marquette University. Still, after agreeing to sign both Matthew Dellavedova and Mirza Teletovic, Milwaukee will likely have to make a corresponding move to offer Wade a sizable contract.
9:26am: Dwyane Wade‘s contract standoff with the Heat has given other teams hope of signing him, tweets Adrian Wojnarowski of The Vertical. Several GMs believe the situation in Miami is becoming serious and have submitted multi-year offers to Wade’s representatives. Some are planning phone calls with Wade today in an effort to get him to end his 13-year association with the Heat (Twitter link).
Miami has been unable to give Wade a firm offer because of the uncertainty surrounding free agent center Hassan Whiteside and the team’s pursuit of Thunder free agent Kevin Durant. The Heat resolved the Whiteside situation early this morning when the parties agreed on a four-year maximum deal. They will meet with Durant on Sunday.
It was reported earlier this week that Wade became frustrated after his initial talks with Miami and instructed his agents to contact the Spurs and Mavericks about his possible availability. Wade also had contentious talks with the Heat last summer before agreeing to a one-year deal worth $20MM. The 34-year-old averaged 19.0 points, 4.1 rebounds and 4.6 assists in 74 games this season.
Wouldn’t hate the Lakers if they tried to sign this guy. I think realistically he stays with Miami. Would be absolutely shocked if he went somewhere else. Imagine if him and Durant both went to the Spurs?
Lakers need to sign, teach young group how to win
If only Sacramento was good enough to warrant consideration. Unfortunately he wouldn’t alleviate the issue of having only a couple shooters on the team.
The Sacramento Kings are a perpetual dumpster fire. No one wants to go there.
Not a Heat fan, but I think Wade is becoming a bit of a diva with this. With everyone healthy, he’s not even the best player on the team anymore and he’s not going to single-handedly carrythe Heat to another championship. I understand he wants to get paid but at the same time he has to realize that the only way to keep the Heat as a serious championship contender is to pursue other guys as well. At the price he’s probably demanding (over $20 million I presume) it makes more sense for the Heat to see if they can sign one other big free agent and then circle back to Wade. I might be wrong, but signing Wade first might restrict their ability to go out and offer a big contract to KD.
He is the best on this team. They need to pay him & stop with the crap. He has never been the highest paid on his team yet is the face of this franchise. I am a Heat fan & I hope he sign elsewhere & show them his value. 13yrs he should be paid first. Team Wade#3!!!!
With Bosh down? He is probably the best player on the team. But a healthy Bosh is the star of the team and thus the best player.
Agreed they should pay him and I have nothing against him asking for market rate as he does deserve it, but if he wants the team to have a chance at adding KD, he has to wait. If Wade signs at $20 million, or more, right now before waiting on KD, the only way to even have a chance at signing him is for Whiteside to probably to cut his proposed salary by half (so $10-$11 million, which I doubt he wants to do as he might never get another shot to get paid like this again) and/or for KD to take less than the max/what he wants (which is not exactly the best way to convince a guy to sign with you).
or they could move Dragic and McRoberts….
That’s actually still not enough. Even if they move everyone else on their roster (Dragic, McRoberts, Weber, Winslow) they still can’t give KD the max (a projected $26 million), Whiteside his proposed $22 million max and Wade his $20 million. If KD takes substantially leas than the max, Whiteside takes half his proposed salary and/or Wade takes another paycut, then they could have a chance without giving up Winslow, but most of the scenarios involving KD to the Heat involve Wade taking a pay cut even after trading Dragic, McRoberts, and Weber.
I’m pretty tired, and its extremely late right now, so I may be a little off here, but both Wade and Whiteside have said they will take a little less if KD goes there. The Heat started with $42 million in cap space. If they trade McRoberts and dont bring back salary, that opens up another $6 million, giving them $48 million in space. If they can move Dragic as well, that opens up another $16 million. If Whiteside takes $20 million, and Wade takes $16-17 million, they have room for KD. Also, I may be wrong, but dont the Heat have Wade’s bird rights to go over the cap to keep him anyway? In that case, they’d still be able to pay him more, and then they’d likely match on Tyler Johnson over the cap, unless someone jeremy lins them
Well yeah, if Wade takes a paycut they can make it work…but this whole thing is about Wade wanting to be a priority and get offered a contract quicker. Again, I’m fine with that as he does deserve that and he’s always been a team first type of guy, but the big thing is that Wade can’t get his $20 million without some extreme cap wiggling by the Heat if they want Durant and it’ll just be easier for him to wait and see if Durant signs with them first and then look to negotiate with Wade.
With what we’ve seen around the league, Wade is at least a 25 million per for 3 years guy right now. Heat need to move mcroberts and take care of wade. If they can’t get anyone else, or have to move dragic, then so be it. No matter what, I will not accept seeing Dwyane Wade play in another jersey. Please don’t repeat the Zo thing with Wade. Riley has to know this would be wayyyy worse. Still think they’ll make sure to keep him, but his wife’s tweets have worried me a bit
I know it seems like a bad option for him winning, but the nets should take a crack at signing wade with the large cap they have, and can possibly attract other free agents to join him in an attempt to be a playoff team
Sixers should call up Iverson to call up D-Wade and the Sixers should give him the Max. He would be the veteran the team needs and with championship experience. What better to guide a young Ben Simmons then a Champion. Obviously the Sixers have nowhere else to spend the money and with the right pieces they could possibly be a pretty good team with Wade, SImmons, and whatevers left of the big 4 of Noel, Okafor, Embiid and Saric.
Would not be surprised if they make the call. Would be surprised if he answered.
There would be absolutely no spacing on that roster. A starting four (out of five) of Wade, Simmons/Saric, Noel, Okafor/Embiid would result in teams stacking the paint. Wade might be the best shooter of that bunch (Saric might be better, not sure of his numbers) and that’s a scary thing to say.
I like Wade to the Bucks! I mean is there a more irrelevant ran in all of sports?!?
A lot of fans understandably want the Heat to give in to his demands. Consider: Wade ranked 39th among shooting guards in real plus-minus last season, and two of his teammates, Josh Richardson and Tyler Johnson, ranked better.
Wade was fifth in the NBA in usage rate, but he had the second-worst player efficiency rating among players in the top 10 (only Kobe Bryant had a worse efficiency). His PER of 20.3 was his lowest since his rookie year. As for his claimed sacrifices, a lot of players took pay cuts for their team to afford to attract top players to have a chance at a ring, the Spurs being the best example. That’s their choice. Wade won two rings and four trips to the finals which netted him big payoffs in endorsements and ads that exceeded his salary. He has made over $153,000,000 in his career and like Shaq will continue to rake in major endorsement fees for years to come. Let’s be real. Overpaying an aging star who has been injured 3 of the past 4 seasons will hurt the teams playoff sucess chances and that is not the way Riley works.