- ESPN’s Bobby Marks provides some financial details on the rookie scale extensions signed on Monday, outlining (via Twitter) exactly how much bonus money is included in five of those deals. Marks also identifies four players who will receive increased partial guarantees as a result of remaining under contract with their respective teams through Wednesday (Twitter link). Those players are Christian Wood (Pistons), Jordan McRae (Wizards), Kendrick Nunn (Heat), and Trey Burke (Sixers).
As of Monday’s roster cutdown deadline, no NBA team is carrying more than 17 players in total — 15 on standard contracts and two on two-way deals. However, not every team is making use of all 17 roster spots available to them.
Currently, a third of the league’s 30 teams have at least one open roster spot, either on their regular roster or in their two-way slots.
For most clubs, that decision is financially motivated — teams like the Magic and Nuggets are getting dangerously close to the tax line and prefer to avoid moving even closer by paying an extra player or two. The Thunder and Trail Blazers are already over the tax and won’t want to push their projected bills higher.
For teams like the Heat and Warriors, the decision not to carry a 15th man is dictated by the hard cap — neither club currently has sufficient room under the hard cap for more than 14 players.
Teams’ reasoning for retaining an open two-way spot is less clear. Those players earn very modest salaries and don’t count against the cap, so finances shouldn’t be a factor. Perhaps the teams with two-way openings are still considering their options before G League training camps begin next week, recognizing that any two-way player they sign now is unlikely to actually play for the NBA team this week.
Listed below, with the help of our roster counts breakdown, are the teams that aren’t carrying full rosters.
Teams with an open 15-man roster spot:
- Atlanta Hawks
- Cleveland Cavaliers
- Denver Nuggets
- Golden State Warriors
- Miami Heat
- Oklahoma City Thunder
- Orlando Magic
- Note: The Magic have two open roster spots, giving them two weeks to get to the required minimum of 14 players.
- Portland Trail Blazers
Teams with an open two-way slot:
- Brooklyn Nets
- Phoenix Suns
Dion Waiters and the Heat don’t appear to be on the same page right now. Waiters reportedly expressed displeasure with his role during the preseason, which prompted the team to suspend him for opening night, which in turn led to the veteran guard once again expressing his displeasure — this time on social media.
Given where things stand right now, it’s fair to wonder if the Heat will increase their efforts to move Waiters, who has been mentioned in multiple trade rumors over the last year. However, as Sean Deveney of Heavy.com writes, Waiters didn’t have much trade value before this week, and his suspension won’t exactly improve his stock.
“They’ve been trying to trade him since last Christmas,” one general manager said of the Heat guard. “No one was trying to take him on then. After this kind of thing, it would be really hard to take him on now. He has had this kind of junk attached to him just about his whole career.”
Waiters has a $12.1MM cap hit this season, with a $12.65MM guaranteed salary to follow in 2020/21, the final year of his deal. Moving that contract would likely cost the Heat at least one asset, and the team has already traded away many of its future draft picks.
- Ira Winderman of the Sun Sentinel provides additional details on Dion Waiters‘ suspension, including his decision to make some rather questionable posts on social media in wake of the announcement. The suspension stems from a heated conversation between Waiters and head coach Erik Spoelstra after Waiters played only 10 minutes in the Heat‘s final preseason game on Friday.
The Heat have suspended shooting guard Dion Waiters for one game for conduct detrimental to the team, according to a press release issued late on Saturday night by the club. The team didn’t get into specifics on why Waiters was suspended, though president Pat Riley put out a brief statement.
“There were a number of unacceptable incidents this week, culminating with his unprofessional conduct on the bench last night,” Riley said. “As a consequence, I feel we had to suspend him.”
While we’ll have to wait for more details on Waiters’ suspension, it’s worth noting that he didn’t seem thrilled earlier in the preseason to be coming off the bench rather than being part of the starting lineup, as Ira Winderman of The South Florida Sun Sentinel relayed.
Waiters will lose out on approximately $83K in salary as a result of the one-game suspension, per ESPN’s Bobby Marks (Twitter link). However, Miami won’t gain any tax relief, since it’s a team-issued ban. Marks also points out (via Twitter) that Waiters would receive a $1.2MM bonus if he plays in at least 70 games this season, so his suspension will slightly reduce his chances of reaching that threshold.
Before the Heat announced Waiters’ suspension, Tim Reynolds of The Associated Press tweeted that the ban might extend beyond just one game. It’s not clear if that scenario is still in play or whether Miami will welcome the 27-year-old back for game two. The Heat’s season opens with a home game against Memphis on October 23, followed by a road contest in Milwaukee on October 26.
The Heat have signed guard Daryl Macon to a two-way contract, according to a team press release. Miami also waived four players — Kyle Alexander, Skyler Flatten, Davon Reed and Bubu Palo — to reduce their opening-night roster to 14 players, Ira Winderman of the South Florida Sun Sentinel tweets.
The Heat can only carry 14 players, one below the maximum, on their regular roster because they’re hard-capped.
Macon got the last spot on the 20-man training camp roster via an Exhibit 10 contract and made the most of it. He appeared in four preseason games, totaling 13 points, two rebounds and two assists in 32 minutes.
Macon, who signed a two-way contract with Dallas last season, split last season between the Mavericks and their G League team, the Texas Legends. He played on the Heat’s summer league team last year after going undrafted out of Arkansas. Forward Chris Silva has the other two-way spot.
Alexander and Reed are the most prominent players among the quartet that was waived. The 6’11” Alexander went undrafted out of Tennessee before joining Miami’s summer league squad.
Reed was the 32nd overall pick in the 2017 draft by the Suns, but lasted just one season in Phoenix before being cut last October. He then signed with the Pacers on a two-way contract and spent most of the 2018/19 campaign playing for the Fort Wayne Mad Ants, Indiana’s G League affiliate.
Some or all of the players waived could wind up with the Heat’s G League affiliate in Sioux Falls.
- Heat forward James Johnson believes he’ll suit up for the opener, Ira Winderman of the South Florida Sun Sentinel writes. Johnson has returned for workouts after a team-imposed suspension when he failed to meet their conditioning standards. Johnson said he just needs to get his body fat percentage down a little more. “You know, body fat takes a long time to drop. So I’m just waiting for that to get down,” he said. “I know my numbers. My weight is good, my conditioning is good, I’m just waiting for my numbers to drop.”
The Heat have filled one of their open two-way slots, announcing in a press release that rookie forward Chris Silva has had his Exhibit 10 contract converted into a two-way deal. Ira Winderman of The South Florida Sun Sentinel first reported the move.
Silva, a 6’9″ forward, went undrafted out of South Carolina this year after averaging 15.2 PPG, 7.6 RPG, and 1.9 BPG in 32 games (26.7 MPG) as a senior. He also showed off an improve three-point stroke, knocking down 23-of-46 attempts from beyond the arc.
After joining the Heat’s Summer League team, Silva signed an Exhibit 10 deal and participated in training camp and the preseason with Miami. While he only played 9.8 minutes per game in five preseason contests, he was impressive in those limited minutes, averaging 5.2 PPG and 3.8 RPG with a .692 FG%.
The Heat’s 14-man regular-season roster is essentially set, and the team has now filled one of its two-way contract slots, but there’s still one more two-way opening. Davon Reed, Daryl Macon, and Kyle Alexander appear to be the contenders for that spot.
Victor Oladipo will begin participating in some full-contact 5-on-5 half-court scrimmages in the coming days but he still has more hurdles to clear before he’ll return to action, Tyler Kraft and Nathan Brown of the Indianapolis Star report. The Pacers have yet to announce a target date for the star guard, who suffered a ruptured quad tendon last season.
“He’s been doing some things 1-on-1,” Pacers head coach Nate McMillan said. “But this is a good sign. They’re going slowly to try to work him into being able to go every day, but it’s good news to know he’ll be able to participate in that first part of practice.”
We have more Eastern Conference news:
- Raptors swingman Patrick McCaw had an MRI on his left knee which revealed no structural damage, Josh Lewenberg of TSN Sports tweets. McCaw suffered the injury during a preseason game last weekend. The Raptors re-signed McCaw to a two-year deal in July.
- The Sixers were interested in acquiring Josh Richardson last season from the Heat before they traded for Jimmy Butler, Michael Lee of The Athletic reports. The Sixers were open to being a third party when the Heat were in trade talks with the Timberwolves for Butler with Philadelphia targeting Richardson. When those talks collapsed, the Sixers eventually worked out a trade for Butler. Those two swingmen were the main components of the sign-and-trade this summer when Butler agreed to join Miami.
- Forward Taurean Prince is hopeful that he can reached an extension agreement with the Nets prior to Monday’s deadline, as he told Brian Lewis of the New York Post. He’ll be a restricted free agent next summer if he doesn’t sign an extension. “I want to be here as long as I can. And whatever happens, happens, but I’m just happy to play good basketball,” Prince said. “One hundred percent, yeah. For sure. This is the best organization I’ve been in.”
Bradley Beal‘s decision to sign a two-year contract extension with the Wizards on Thursday surprised many NBA observers, since Beal could have potentially signed a more lucrative contract in a year or simply chose not to extend his stay with his rebuilding franchise. Speaking to reporters, including David Aldridge of The Athletic, the All-Star shooting guard explained why he opted to sign the new deal, which will lock him up through at least the 2021/22 season.
“I guess legacy at the end of the day,” Beal said. “This is where I’ve been for the last seven years, going on eight. I have an opportunity to be able to turn this thing around. A lot of people doubt that. I view it as a challenge. I view it as something that I feel a lot of D.C. sports have been a part of, rebuilding something and kind of building them into championship-caliber teams. Why not me? Why kind of sell myself short of a great opportunity that I have in my hands right now?”
While the extension is a big win for the Wizards and new general manager Tommy Sheppard, it’s worth noting that Beal only tacked on one guaranteed season to his current deal, so his commitment to the organization isn’t as long-term as it could have been.
One person with knowledge of Beal’s thinking tells Aldridge that the 26-year-old is “giving [Sheppard] a chance now that he’s in charge.” If the Wizards don’t show real progress in the next year or two, it’s still possible that Beal will have second thoughts about whether he wants to remain in D.C. long-term.
Here’s more on Beal’s new deal:
- Chase Hughes of NBC Sports Washington hears that Sheppard and Wizards owner Ted Leonsis, along with other Wizards executives, flew to Chicago last month to meet with Beal and agent Mark Bartelstein. Beal had the opportunity at that meeting to ask questions about the franchise’s direction. “I just felt comfortable with where we were going,” Beal said. “I talked to Ted and they kind of projected the future and gave me the layout of what we can do in the future.”
- Fred Katz of The Athletic explores how Beal’s extension affects the Wizards’ rebuilding process, noting that having the two-time All-Star under contract for at least the next three years gives the team some extra security to be patient with its roster moves.
- Ben Golliver of The Washington Post digs into what the extension means to Sheppard, a first-time general manager who was placed in a tough situation.
- The Heat were known to be one team that would have serious interest in Beal if the Wizards changed course and decided to trade him, but that will no longer be an option for Miami, at least during the 2019/20 season, as Ira Winderman of The South Florida Sun Sentinel writes.