Kings Officially Acquire DeRozan, Spurs Get Barnes In Three-Team Swap

The blockbuster three-team deal involving DeMar DeRozan and Harrison Barnes is official, according to a Spurs press release, Kings press release, and Bulls press release.

The Spurs acquired Barnes from the Kings. In addition, San Antonio received the right to swap first-round picks with the Kings in 2031 while sending two-way player RaiQuan Gray to Chicago. 

Additionally, the Spurs are waiving Charles Bassey to complete the trade, Jeff McDonald of the San Antonio Express-News tweets. However, San Antonio is exploring ways to bring Bassey back in the fold.

Sacramento acquired DeRozan from the Bulls while sending Chris Duarte, two second-round picks and cash considerations to Chicago, along with Barnes and the 2031 pick swap to San Antonio.

The Bulls will waive Gray, K.C. Johnson of NBC Sports Chicago tweets.

The deal is a sign-and-trade for DeRozan, who ranked sixth on our list of the top 50 free agents for this summer. His new contract is worth approximately $76MM over three years, according to Chris Haynes of TNT and Bleacher Report (Twitter link), who adds that the first two seasons are fully guaranteed with a partial guarantee for the final year.

The contract includes $49MM in guaranteed money over the first two seasons, per Sean Cunningham of FOX 40 Sacramento (Twitter link). It also features bonuses for being named an All-Star, tweets ESPN’s Bobby Marks.

The trade leaves the Kings hard-capped at the $178.1MM first apron, per cap expert Yossi Gozlan (Twitter link). Sacramento will also create a $5.9MM trade exception in the deal, Gozlan adds.

The 34-year-old DeRozan was extremely productive during his three seasons in Chicago, averaging 25.5 points, 4.7 rebounds and 5.1 assists per game and finishing near the top in the Clutch Player of the Year balloting the past two seasons.

The six-time All-Star will now team with De’Aaron FoxDomantas SabonisMalik Monk and Keegan Murray on what should be one of the league’s most exciting offenses. The Kings will be counting on that group to lead them back to the playoffs after being eliminated in the play-in tournament last season.

Parting with DeRozan is the latest step in an offseason roster shakeup in Chicago, which has already traded Alex Caruso and lost Andre Drummond in free agency. The Bulls are shifting to a younger and less expensive roster in hopes of eventually rebuilding into a more competitive team.

Duarte, a 27-year-old swingman with three years of NBA experience, is the latest addition, but it’s uncertain how large his role will be. He appeared in 59 games with Sacramento last season, but averaged just 3.9 points and 1.8 rebounds in 12.2 minutes per night.

Duarte is under contract for one more season at $5.9MM and is eligible for an extension through October 21. Chicago will create a significant trade exception in the deal $17.6MM trade exception in the deal, according to Bobby Marks of ESPN (Twitter link).

Barnes joins Chris Paul as veteran offseason additions in San Antonio. The 32-year-old is extremely durable, playing in all 82 games the past two seasons. He can handle either forward spot and he figures to get plenty of open looks alongside Paul and Victor Wembanyama. Barnes averaged 12.2 points, 3.0 rebounds and 1.2 assists last season with .474/.387/.801 shooting stats.

The Spurs will use their cap space to absorb Barnes’ $18MM salary for the upcoming season, Wojnarowski and Tim Bontemps write in a full story on the trade. Barnes will make $19MM in 2025/26 before becoming an unrestricted free agent.

Barnes’ contract includes a $3.7MM trade kicker that Sacramento will be responsible for, Marks adds (Twitter link), broken up into $1.85MM for each of the next two seasons. That number could be negotiated down, but only with Barnes’ consent.

Knicks Sign Ariel Hukporti On Two-Way Deal

8:06pm: The signing is official, the team’s PR department tweets. It’s a one-year deal, The Athletic’s Fred Katz tweets.


6:04pm: The Knicks are signing the last pick of the draft, Ariel Hukporti, to a two-way contract, Michael Scotto of HoopsHype reports (Twitter link).

The German-born big man spent the 2023/24 season in Australia with Melbourne United, averaging 8.4 PPG, 7.0 RPG and 1.5 BPG in 28 games (18.4 MPG).

New York made multiple trades in the second round and wound up with the final pick in the draft, where it snagged Hukporti. All of the Knicks’ two-way slots are open, though they have a two-way qualifying offer on the table for Jacob Toppin.

Southwest Notes: Ingram, Grizzlies, Barnes, Spurs

The Hawks were considered a possible trade suitor for Brandon Ingram this offseason, but they ended up not having much interest in giving the forward his next contract or surrendering either Clint Capela or Onyeka Okongwu in a trade with the Pelicans, league sources tell William Guillory of The Athletic.

As a result, the Pelicans and Hawks instead made a deal involving Dejounte Murray that didn’t include Ingram or either of Atlanta’ centers. Now it’s unclear whether New Orleans will be able to find a trade partner for Ingram, who will be on an expiring contract in 2024/25.

According to Guillory, both the Pelicans and Ingram would prefer not to go into training camp without an extension, since it may become a distraction. That could mean New Orleans will be looking to complete a trade by late September, but it also doesn’t sound like a new contract for the former All-Star is out of the question. Guillory cites “some optimism within the building” that Ingram and the Pelicans could work out an extension below the max that leaves both sides happy.

Here’s more from around the Southwest:

  • The Grizzlies have officially announced Taylor Jenkins‘ new-look coaching staff for the 2024/25 season (Twitter link). Anthony Carter and Patrick St. Andrews are the only returning assistants, though one newcomer (Jason March) had been coaching the Memphis Hustle, while another (Erik Schmidt) was the Grizzlies’ head video coordinator. Joe Boylan (formerly of the Timberwolves), Patrick Mutombo (from the Bucks), Tuomas Iisalo (Paris Basketball), and Noah LaRoche are the other additions. Former assistants Blake Ahearn, Brad Jones, Scoonie Penn, Sonia Raman, and Vitaly Potapenko have all been replaced, writes Damichael Cole of The Memphis Commercial Appeal.
  • LJ Ellis of SpursTalk shares his thoughts on the Spurs‘ impending acquisition of Harrison Barnes, explains why he likes the fit and why he expects the veteran forward to be a starter in San Antonio. As Ellis notes, more minor roster moves will be necessary to open up enough cap room to accommodate Barnes’ incoming salary, so he’s reluctant to give his final assessment of the deal until it’s clear what those moves will be.
  • As Mike Finger of The San Antonio Express-News points out (via Twitter), the Spurs wouldn’t have been in position to add both Barnes and Chris Paul if they had kept the No. 8 overall pick in the draft, which carried a cap hit of $6.26MM.

Pelicans Sign Yves Missi To Rookie Scale Contract

The Pelicans have signed first-round pick Yves Missi to a rookie scale contract, according to the NBA transactions log. The Pelicans confirmed the signing via a press release.

Missi, a big man out of Baylor, was the 21st pick of the draft. Assuming he received the maximum 120% of this year’s rookie scale salaries, Missi will make $3,193,200 in his first season. He can earn a total of $15,654,827 over the next four seasons.

Rookie scale contracts are guaranteed for the first two years, with team options on the third and fourth years.

In his lone college season, Missi averaged 10.7 points, 5.6 rebounds and 1.5 blocks in 22.9 minutes per game while appearing in 34 contests, including 32 starts.

With the departure of Jonas Valanciunas, Missi has an opportunity to earn minutes in his rookie campaign.

Celtics Re-Sign JD Davison To Two-Way Contract

JD Davison is back under contract in Boston, according to the Celtics, who announced (via Twitter) they’ve signed the free agent guard to another two-way deal.

Davison, who was the 53rd overall pick out of Alabama in 2022, has spent his first two professional seasons on two-way contracts with the Celtics, logging just 105 total minutes in 20 games at the NBA level across those two years.

While Davison hasn’t been able to crack the rotation on a veteran NBA roster, the 21-year-old has been a high-level performer for the Maine Celtics in the G League. He earned All-NBAGL Third Team honors this past season after averaging 21.5 points, 8.5 assists, and 5.1 rebounds in 34.3 minutes per game across 44 total Showcase Cup and regular season contests.

The Celtics didn’t issue Davison a qualifying offer at the end of June because he was ineligible for another two-way QO (his offer would’ve been a one-year, partially guaranteed standard contract). However, it appears bringing him back on a third two-way contract was always the plan. Davison will play for Boston’s Summer League team this month in Las Vegas.

The C’s now have one two-way slot available, with Drew Peterson filling the other.

Atlantic Notes: Martin, Sixers, Embiid, Vezenkov, Celtics

In order to maximize their cap room, the Sixers renounced the rights to nearly all of their free agents, including a handful of players who hadn’t actually been on the roster for years, per Keith Smith of Spotrac (Twitter links). However, there was one notable exception: KJ Martin‘s cap hold remains on the team’s books.

Martin’s cap hold is worth the veteran’s minimum of $2,087,519, but Philadelphia holds his full Bird rights, allowing the team to go over the cap to re-sign him to a contract worth any salary up to the maximum.

Of course, Martin won’t get the max, but it could be in the 76ers’ best interests to re-sign him to a deal worth more than the minimum. Besides potentially vying for rotation minutes, Martin might come in handy as a trade chip on a roster where so many players will be earning either maximum- or minimum-salary contracts.

Here’s more from around the Atlantic:

  • A year after James Harden‘s trade demand hung over the Sixers‘ offseason like a dark cloud, there’s more optimism this summer in Philadelphia about the new-look roster, headed by Joel Embiid, Paul George, and Tyrese Maxey. Speaking to Tim Bontemps of ESPN, Embiid cautioned that the team still needs to make it work on the court, but admitted he’s excited about how the new big three looks. “On paper, and as far as the fit, it looks fantastic because you got both guys that can play off the ball, and they can play on ball and they’re great shooters and they can handle the ball, and then you also got me,” he said with a smile.“So, yeah, it looks great.”
  • Addressing the Sasha Vezenkov situation on Monday, Raptors president Masai Ujiri said he has had discussions with Vezenkov, his representatives, GM Bobby Webster, and head coach Darko Rajakovic about the matter. As Keith Smith of Spotrac details in depth, Vezenkov has reportedly reached a deal with Olympiacos but remains under contract with Toronto on a guaranteed NBA contract, preventing him from returning to Greece without the Raptors’ cooperation. “I think that should develop in the next few days or we’ll see whether it’s a few months,” Ujiri said. “We acquired a player in a trade and we feel we have communicated well. We communicated well with the agent and the team before. And so we’ll see how that goes.”
  • Taking a closer look at the Celticsdecision to put majority control of the franchise up for sale, Dan Shaughnessy of The Boston Globe says he believe H. Irving Grousbeck is ‘the one driving this sale” and that his son Wyc Grousbeck – the team’s governor and CEO – actually owns a “relatively small stake” in the team.

Wolves Sign Dillingham, Shannon To Rookie Contracts

The Timberwolves have officially signed first-round picks Rob Dillingham and Terrence Shannon to their rookie scale contracts, according to the NBA’s transaction log.

Minnesota acquired the No. 8 pick – which originally belonged to Toronto – from the Spurs on draft night in order to select Dillingham. The former Kentucky guard averaged 15.2 points, 3.9 assists, and 2.9 rebounds in just 23.3 minutes per game across 32 outings during his first and only college season, knocking down an impressive 44.4% of his three-point attempts.

While Dillingham may not play a significant role immediately on a veteran roster that is coming off a Western Conference Finals appearance, the Wolves lost some backcourt depth this offseason when Monte Morris and Jordan McLaughlin signed elsewhere. At the very least, the team’s lottery pick should get a chance to earn rotation minutes and provide some scoring punch off the bench.

The Wolves used their own No. 27 pick on Shannon, another high-scoring guard. The 6’6″ Illinois alum put up 23.0 PPG on .475/.362/.801 shooting in 33.9 MPG (32 games).

Assuming neither player accepted less than the maximum allowable 120% of the rookie scale, Dillingham will earn about $6.26MM as a rookie, with a four-year deal worth $28.49MM, while Shannon’s rookie salary will be $2.55MM and his four-year contract will be worth $13.08MM.

As our tracker shows, 27 of this year’s 30 first-round picks have now signed their rookie scale contracts.

How NBA Teams Become Hard-Capped

The NBA doesn’t technically have a “hard” salary cap in place that teams are prohibited from surpassing during a given league year. But under the league’s current Collective Bargaining Agreement, there are a ton of different ways that a team can impose a hard cap on itself.

We broke down these rules back in December when we updated our glossary entry on the hard cap, but the rules for last season were a little different than the ones that have taken effect this season. And it’s always helpful to have concrete examples to point to in order to illustrate how these rules work.

So we’re taking a deep dive today into how exactly a team can become hard-capped.

There are two levels at which a hard cap can apply: the first tax apron ($178,132,000 in 2024/25) and the second tax apron ($188,931,000). We’ll start with the first apron.


First apron

A team becomes hard-capped at the first tax apron ($178,132,000) by making any of the following moves:

1. Uses the bi-annual exception to sign a player to a contract or to acquire a player via trade or waiver claim.

This one’s not new, and it’s pretty straightforward. Use any portion of the bi-annual exception for any purpose between July 6 and the end of the subsequent regular season and you’re hard-capped at the first apron.

The Rockets (Aaron Holiday) are the only team to use the BAE so far in 2024/25. The Clippers are expected to become the second once they officially sign Nicolas Batum.

2. Uses more than the taxpayer portion of the mid-level exception to sign a player to a contract.

A team above the first tax apron is permitted to use up to $5,168,000 of the mid-level exception in 2024/25. Use a dollar more than that and the result is a hard cap at the first apron.

Crucially, this restriction applies not just to dollars but to years as well — a non-taxpayer mid-level signing can be for up to four years, but a taxpayer MLE signing can only cover one or two seasons. So signing a player to a three-year contract using the mid-level would hard-cap a team at the first apron, even if the player’s starting salary is only $3MM.

The Mavericks (Naji Marshall) are the only team to use more than the taxpayer portion of the MLE so far in 2024/25. The Clippers, Warriors, and Bulls figure to join that list once Derrick Jones‘, De’Anthony Melton‘s, and Jalen Smith‘s deals are official.

3. Uses any portion of the mid-level exception to acquire a player via trade or waiver claim.

Beginning in 2024/25, the non-taxpayer mid-level exception, the room exception, and the bi-annual exception can be used to acquire a player via trade or waiver claim. However, the taxpayer mid-level exception cannot.

That means if a team wants the flexibility to operate over the first apron, it can’t use its mid-level exception to trade for a player, even if that player is earning less than the taxpayer portion of the MLE ($5,168,000).

This is why, for instance, the Nuggets – who are operating in first apron territory – couldn’t realistically trade for Russell Westbrook ($4,027,525) using their taxpayer MLE (which would hard-cap them at the first apron), but they’re able to use it to sign a free agent (Dario Saric).

4. Acquires a player via sign-and-trade.

This is another pretty straightforward rule, and one that’s been around for a while. No team can operate above the first apron if they’ve received a player in a sign-and-trade deal.

The Mavericks (Klay Thompson), Warriors (Buddy Hield and Kyle Anderson), Nets (Shake Milton), Hawks (Cody Zeller), and Wizards (Jonas Valanciunas) all fit into this category so far, and the Kings will join them when their sign-and-trade for DeMar DeRozan becomes official.

5. Signs a player who was waived during the regular season and whose pre-waiver salary was higher than the non-taxpayer mid-level exception.

It’s important to note that this rule, designed to regulate the buyout market, only applies if the player is waived after the regular season begins. So after Chris Paul ($30MM salary) was cut on June 30, there were no teams prohibited from signing him. But if Paul had remained on that contract and then been waived during the regular season, only teams operating below the aprons would have been permitted to sign him.

The non-taxpayer mid-level exception this season is $12,822,000, so if a player earning even a single dollar more than that amount is waived during the season, this restriction will apply to whichever team signs him.

6. Uses an outgoing player (or multiple players) in a trade for matching purposes to take back more than 100% of the outgoing salary.

It would be simpler to say “take back more salary you send out in a trade and you’re hard-capped at the first apron,” but that’s not quite accurate.

For instance, when a team uses cap room to accommodate extra incoming salary in a trade, no hard cap is created. So the Pistons didn’t hard-cap themselves at the first apron when they traded Quentin Grimes ($4,296,682) and took back Tim Hardaway Jr. ($16,193,183) into their cap space. If the Pistons had been operating over the cap and took advantage of the NBA’s salary-matching rules to trade Grimes for a player earning $6MM, that would have hard-capped them at the first apron. But salary-matching wasn’t necessary to take on Hardaway.

Here’s another exception to the rule. Let’s say the Suns trade Nassir Little ($6,750,000) and in return receive one player earning $6.5MM and another player who is in the second year of a two-year, minimum-salary contract (with a cap hit of about $2.4MM). That’s permitted, even though the Suns are a second-apron team taking on more total money in the deal than they’re sending out. Little is earning more than the first player, and his salary isn’t required for matching purposes for the second player, who can be acquired “separately” using the minimum salary exception.

A team is always permitted to use the minimum salary exception to trade for a player whose contract fits into that exception, regardless of the team’s proximity to the aprons.

Essentially, this rule comes down to whether the team is using its outgoing player(s) for the purposes of matching the incoming salary. If so, the incoming salary can’t exceed the outgoing amount by even a single dollar.

The Wizards (Malcolm Brogdon), Thunder (Alex Caruso), Raptors (Sasha Vezenkov), Pelicans (Dejounte Murray), Mavericks (Thompson), and Warriors (Hield/Anderson) are among the teams who have become hard-capped at the first apron in 2024/25 as a result of this rule (if they weren’t already hard-capped for another reason).

This rule also applies to non-simultaneous trade exceptions. A non-apron team that holds a non-simultaneous trade exception is given a $250K allowance above that exception’s amount, but an apron team isn’t permitted to take advantage of that allowance. Doing so would create a hard cap at the first apron.

For example, when the Wizards acquired Valanciunas via sign-and-trade, they used a trade exception worth approximately $9.8MM to give him a starting salary of $9.9MM, taking advantage of that extra $250K in wiggle room. Exceeding the TPE amount hard-capped them at the first apron, though that hard cap would have existed anyway due to the fact that they were taking on Valanciunas via sign-and-trade.

7. Uses a traded player exception generated during the previous offseason or regular season.

A non-simultaneous trade exception can be used anytime for one year after it’s generated, but that time frame becomes significantly condensed for apron teams. Once a team’s season ends and its offseason begins, a team operating above the first apron is not permitted to use a TPE that was created during the preceding regular season or the previous offseason.

For example, the Heat are currently operating above the first tax apron, which means the two trade exceptions they created last July ($9.45MM for Victor Oladipo and $7.24MM for Max Strus) aren’t available to them, and neither is the $6.48MM exception they generated in January by trading Kyle Lowry. Those TPEs are essentially “frozen” and would become available again if Miami moves below the first apron before they expire.

However, an apron team can use a trade exception if it was created since the regular season ended. The Timberwolves, for instance, generated a TPE worth $2.54MM when they traded Wendell Moore to Detroit. That exception is available to them, but the $4MM TPE they created in February for trading Troy Brown isn’t.

As our tracker shows, the Hawks, Nets, Mavericks, Rockets, and Raptors have each used a trade exception this summer that was generated prior to the end of the regular season, so they’re hard-capped at the first apron for 2024/25 (all five teams also made other moves that resulted in that hard cap).


Second apron

A team becomes hard-capped at the second tax apron ($188,931,000) by making any of the following moves:

1. Uses any portion of the mid-level exception to sign a player to a contract.

The mid-level exception is not available at all to teams operating above the second apron, so a team that uses any portion of it – even an amount well below the taxpayer limit – to sign a player becomes ineligible to surpass the second apron for the rest of the season.

While no team has officially made a taxpayer mid-level signing yet, the Nuggets are on track to do so with Saric (as noted above), which will hard-cap them at the second apron.

2. Aggregates two or more players in a trade for salary-matching purposes.

Aggregating” players doesn’t mean simply including them in the same trade — it means combining their salaries for matching  purposes in that trade. A team operating above the second apron could make a deal sending out multiple players for one, as long as only one of them is required for salary-matching (and the incoming player is earning less than that outgoing player).

For instance, the Suns could send out Little ($6.75MM) and David Roddy ($2.85MM) for one player earning $6.5MM, since Little’s salary matches for the incoming player, so he and Roddy don’t need to be aggregated together.

When the Kings traded Davion Mitchell ($5.06MM) and Vezenkov ($6.34MM) to Toronto in a deal for Jalen McDaniels ($4.52MM), it didn’t hard-cap Sacramento at the second apron because Mitchell and Vezenkov weren’t aggregated — Mitchell matched McDaniels’ lesser incoming salary on his own.

Let’s say Mitchell’s and McDaniels’ salary figures had been flipped, so McDaniels was the one earning a little more. In that scenario, Sacramento likely would’ve opted to aggregate Mitchell and Vezenkov, even though Mitchell’s salary on his own would have been legally enough to match McDaniels’ incoming figure — not aggregating them and using Mitchell as the sole matching piece would have meant the Kings were taking back more than 100% of his salary, hard-capping them at the first apron.

This is the issue the Knicks ran into in their Mikal Bridges trade with the Nets. Bojan Bogdanovic‘s $19MM+ salary was technically enough to legally match Bridges’ incoming $23.3MM figure, but taking back more than 100% of Bogdanovic’s outgoing money would’ve hard-capped New York at the first apron. The Knicks instead chose to aggregate Milton ($2,875,000) and Mamadi Diakite‘s partial guarantee ($1,392,150) with Bogdanovic’s salary to get to $23.3MM and hard-cap themselves at the second apron instead.

It’s important to note that the team’s position relative to the apron upon the conclusion of the trade (not before the trade) dictates this rule.

Let’s say a team is operating $2MM above the second tax apron and wants to aggregate a $15MM player with a $20MM player for a single player earning $30MM. That would be permitted, since the move would reduce the team’s salary by $5MM, bringing it $3MM below the second apron once the trade is completed. The club would then be prohibited from surpassing the second apron again for the rest of the league year.

The Knicks (for Bridges) and the Pelicans (for Murray) are the only teams so far this season who have aggregated salaries in a trade. But New Orleans is already hard-capped at the first apron, so New York is the lone club hard-capped at the second apron as the result of aggregation.

3. Sends out cash in a trade.

This rule is new, but it’s pretty simple. Send out any amount of cash in a trade and you’re hard-capped for the rest of that league year.

This rule goes into effect as soon as the regular season ends, so a team that sent out cash this June became hard-capped for the rest of 2024/25, even though the league year change didn’t technically occur until July 1. The Hawks, Mavericks, and Thunder each sent out cash in June, which would’ve hard-capped them at the second apron for ’24/25 (all three teams made other moves that ultimately hard-capped them at the first apron instead).

The Pacers and Hornets are the only two teams to this point who are hard-capped at the second apron as a result of sending out cash. Several other teams have traded cash but are hard-capped at the first apron for other reasons.

4. Sends out a player via sign-and-trade and uses that player’s outgoing salary to take back a contract.

Under the new CBA, there are restrictions facing not just a team that acquires a player via sign-and-trade but to a team that sends out a player via sign-and-trade. That team isn’t allowed to take back salary using the outgoing signed-and-traded player for matching purposes.

For example, the Timberwolves are currently operating over the second apron, so when they signed-and-traded Anderson to Golden State, they would’ve been prohibited from taking back a player in that transaction using Anderson’s $8.78MM salary as a matching piece.

If the Wolves were to acquire an incoming player in that deal using another legal exception (such as the minimum salary exception or the aforementioned Moore TPE), that would have been permitted. But Anderson’s outgoing salary couldn’t be used to match.

The Knicks (Milton) and the Pelicans (Zeller) are the two teams so far this season that used an outgoing signed-and-traded player for matching purposes in a deal. The Bulls will join them as a result of the DeRozan sign-and-trade.

5. Sends out a player via sign-and-trade and uses the resulting traded player exception to acquire a player via trade or waiver claim.

This is basically the other half of the previous rule. Not only could the Timberwolves not take back salary for Anderson in the same deal in which they signed-and-traded him, but they also can’t use the non-simultaneous trade exception generated by his outgoing $8.78MM salary, even though it was newly created this offseason. Using that exception would hard-cap Minnesota at the second apron for the rest of 2024/25.

Besides Minnesota, only the Pelicans (Valanciunas) have created a non-simultaneous trade exception for a signed-and-traded player this offseason. The Bulls will also have one once the DeRozan deal is official.

Heat Re-Sign Haywood Highsmith

5:25pm: The signing is official, the team tweets.


12:10pm: The Heat have agreed to re-sign free agent forward Haywood Highsmith, agent Jerry Dianis tell Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN (Twitter link).

Highsmith will receive a two-year, $11MM deal to remain in Miami, per Wojnarowski. The full amount is guaranteed, with no team or player option on the second year, Woj adds (Twitter link).

“We’ve been consistent with Miami with how Haywood felt,” Dianis told Ira Winderman of The South Florida Sun Sentinel (Twitter link). “And we felt he wanted to be in Miami. This deal memorializes that.”

Highsmith, who is 6’7″ with a seven-foot wingspan, earned a rotation role in Miami over the last two seasons due primarily due to his defense. However, he has gradually developed into more of a threat on the offensive end, having set new career highs in points per game (6.1), field-goal percentage (46.5%), and three-point percentage (39.6%) while averaging 20.7 minutes per contest across 66 games (26 starts) in 2023/24.

The No. 36 free agent on our top-50 list, Highsmith reportedly drew interest from rival suitors during free agency. According to Barry Jackson of The Miami Herald (Twitter link), the Bucks and Suns – both of whom were limited to minimum-salary offers – were among the teams pursuing the 27-year-old, with Damian Lillard joining Milwaukee’s recruiting efforts.

However, Highsmith had spoken multiple times in the spring about his desire to remain in Miami. The Heat were limited in their ability to offer much more than the two-year, $11MM contract they put on the table due to their proximity to the second tax apron — and their desire to remain below that apron.

According to cap expert Yossi Gozlan (Twitter link), the club projects to have about $1.5MM in breathing room below the second apron, with 14 players on guaranteed contracts. That suggests, barring additional roster moves, that the 15th roster spot may remain open entering the season.

Team USA Notes: Edwards, Durant, Leonard, LeBron

Timberwolves guard Anthony Edwards declared himself “the No. 1 option” for Team USA during a media session on Sunday, but that’s not how he really views his place on the squad, writes Joe Vardon of The Athletic. Vardon suggests that Edwards may have been performing a little bit when talking to reporters, defaulting to the brash personality that has helped him become one of the NBA’s most recognizable figures at age 22. Outside of the media spotlight, Edwards acknowledged that he’s teaming up with some of the greatest players of all time.

“We got LeBron (James), (Kevin Durant) and (Stephen Curry),” Edwards told Vardon. “So I don’t feel like nobody can beat those three by themselves on the court. You mix in two of us regular guys, we’ll be all right.”

Edwards and Tyrese Haliburton are the only returning players from the U.S. contingent that failed to win a medal at last year’s FIBA World Cup. Edwards became a star on that team after initially being projected for a sixth-man slot, but he knows it will be more difficult to earn a consistent role while playing with legends.

“They mentioned some guys might not play some games, or might not play many minutes,” Edwards said. “I don’t mind. Like I said, I’m playing alongside Hall of Famers. So I’m just here. But if they need me, I’ll be one call away.”

There’s more on Team USA:

  • A strained calf forced Durant to sit out the first two days of training camp, Vardon adds along with Shams Charania in a separate story for The Athletic. Coach Steve Kerr said the injury isn’t considered serious, but the Suns forward may miss Wednesday’s first exhibition game against Canada. “We’re just going to use an abundance of caution,” Kerr said. “It’s not bad. He’s assuring me that it’s not bad. We’re just going to be really careful and take it day by day.”
  • Kawhi Leonard had fears that lingering inflammation in his right knee might cause him to miss the Olympics, but he’s experienced enough improvement that he expects to be ready to play, per Tim Bontemps of ESPN. “Yeah, but this is just my journey, so whatever … I can’t lay out the perfect script for me,” Leonard said. “Last year, I tried to play as much as possible, felt great. And at a certain period of time I couldn’t go. I tried the best that I could, but it’s just my journey. I don’t want to be in a situation that I do be in, but I got to take it for what it is. And a lot of people are watching, supporters or doubters, but I motivate a lot of people.” Leonard refused to comment on Paul George‘s decision to leave the Clippers in free agency, Bontemps adds, saying he wants to focus on Team USA.
  • Kerr was amazed after watching James operate at full speed during Saturday’s first practice session, according to Mark Medina of Sportskeeda. The 39-year-old Lakers star had no problem keeping up with his younger teammates. “I was blown away by how hard he practices,” Kerr said.