Miami Heat Rumors | Hoops Rumors

Butler, Johnson Not On Heat's Weekend Road Trip

October 25th, 2019 at 4:00pm CST by Luke Adams

As we relayed earlier today, Dion Waiters won’t travel with the Heat this weekend as he looks ahead to potentially making his season debut next Tuesday. However, he won’t be the only Miami veteran who is potentially away from the team on its road trip.

Head coach Erik Spoelstra said today that the Heat are planning to be without Jimmy Butler and James Johnson for Saturday’s game in Milwaukee and Sunday’s contest in Minnesota, per the team (Twitter link). Butler’s regular-season debut with Miami has been postponed due to the birth of his daughter, while Johnson is still working on his conditioning.

According to Ira Winderman of The South Florida Sun Sentinel (Twitter link), Udonis Haslem is also dealing with a wrist injury and won’t play on Saturday, so two-way players Daryl Macon and Chris Silva should both be active, joining the other 10 players on the Heat’s standard roster. Miami has one open spot on its roster but can’t currently fill it due to hard-cap limitations.

Dion Waiters Won’t Rejoin Heat Until Monday

October 25th, 2019 at 8:43am CST by Luke Adams

Dion Waiters served his team-mandated one-game suspension on Wednesday, but the veteran guard won’t rejoin the Heat until Monday, according to Ira Winderman of The South Florida Sun Sentinel. While Miami is scheduled to play road games against the Bucks on Saturday and Timberwolves on Sunday, Waiters will not accompany the club on that trip.

Waiters’ original one-game suspension was related to “conduct detrimental to the team,” according to the Heat. The 27-year-old was said to be upset about his role leading up to the season and had a disagreement on the bench with head coach Erik Spoelstra during Miami’s final preseason game, per The Miami Herald.

The club hasn’t offered any specific details on why Waiters will remain away from the team through the weekend. According to Winderman, the Heat guard will work on his conditioning in the interim.

It’s possible that Waiters will rejoin the Heat in advance of Tuesday’s game vs. the Hawks and things will move forward without incident from there, but this looks like a situation worth keeping an eye on — particularly if Waiters remains dissatisfied with coming off the bench. His trade value isn’t high right now, and – as Winderman wrote in a separate story – a buyout with two years left on his contract is unlikely, so it’s in both sides’ best interest to figure out how to make things work this season.

As Winderman observes, Waiters has a $1.2MM incentive available in his contract for appearing in at least 70 games this season. His suspension and his absence from the team this weekend will cost him three games, so he’ll have to play in 70 of the Heat’s final 79 contests to earn that bonus.

Increased Partial Guarantee For Kendrick Nunn

October 23rd, 2019 at 11:04am CST by Luke Adams

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).

NBA Teams With Open Roster Spots To Start Season

October 23rd, 2019 at 9:00am CST by Luke Adams

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 Doesn't Have Positive Trade Value

October 22nd, 2019 at 1:25pm CST by Luke Adams

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.

Details On Heat's Decision To Suspend Dion Waiters

October 20th, 2019 at 6:53pm CST by JD Shaw

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.

Heat Suspend Dion Waiters

October 19th, 2019 at 11:56pm CST by Luke Adams

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.

Daryl Macon Receives Two-Way Deal From Heat

October 19th, 2019 at 3:34pm CST by Dana Gauruder

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.

Johnson Needs To Reduce Body Fat

October 19th, 2019 at 1:12pm CST by Dana Gauruder

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.”

Heat Convert Chris Silva To Two-Way Contract

October 19th, 2019 at 7:46am CST by Luke Adams

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.