If Chris Bosh doesn’t appear in a game by February 9 and an independent doctor selected by the NBA and NBPA declares him medically unfit to continue his career, the Heat could remove his current and future cap hits from their books. That much has been well documented. However, as Barry Jackson of The Miami Herald details, in that scenario, the Heat would unfortunately have some motivation to root against Bosh making a comeback for another team.
According to Jackson, if Bosh were to play in 25 games for another team starting in 2017/18, his cap charges would return to Miami’s books. The Heat wouldn’t be required to remove salary to get back under the cap, but they could be subject to a very expensive luxury tax bill with Bosh’s $25MM+ salary back on the payroll, and his $26MM cap hit for 2018/19 could prevent the team from having any cap room during the 2018 offseason. In that scenario, the Heat might be stuck in a position where they have to shed significant salary via trade in order to avoid a mammoth tax bill, so the team might be inclined to take a cautious approach to spending in 2017 even if Bosh’s cap hits are removed.
Here’s more on the Heat:
- As Jackson observes, if Bosh’s 2016/17 cap charge is removed from the Heat’s payroll between February 9 and February 23, the team could be in a position to take on salary at this season’s trade deadline. It’s not clear how quickly cap relief would be granted to Miami, but Jackson suggests there’s a “good chance” of it happening before the deadline.
- In a separate article for the Herald, Jackson notes that Heat head coach Erik Spoelstra is considering possible lineup and rotation changes in order to kick-start the club’s struggling offense. “I’ll look at everything right now to get us more organized, get guys comfortable and get them to their strengths,” Spoesltra said. “Everything is on the table.”
- Count Stan Van Gundy among those who thought it was “sad” to see Dwyane Wade leave the Heat this summer instead of finishing his career with the franchise, writes Ira Winderman of The South Florida Sun Sentinel. “It’s the way it is now,” Van Gundy said. “Very few guys, very, very, very few guys are going to finish where they start. But it certainly looked for a long time like he would have been one of the guys who would have finished there.”