This was not the meet-and-greet the Miami Heat ever had anticipated, with Wayne Ellington and James Johnson signing their contracts Monday at AmericanAirlines Arena in front of Alonzo Mourning.
Earlier, the Heat posted an Instagram of Derrick Williams’ signing. And, before that, Willie Reed posted his own photo of himself in a Heat jersey.
Soon there will be visual of evidence of Luke Babbitt as a member of the 2016-17 Heat, as well.
Yes, they play here.
This never was the vision of 2016 free agency for the Miami Heat. It always was about Kevin Durant. About Dwyane Wade. About an orderly transition to the next rendition.
Instead, it turned into a dream deferred and a fax machine spitting out names from the deepest recesses of free agency.
With each contract there was covenant of clarity: for this year only. The only transactions that came with salary extending into the 2017 offseason were the nominal $5.9 million due Tyler Johnson and the NBA-minimum salary for Reed. Even Udonis Haslem was assured nothing more going forward than a $4 million salary for the coming season.
And with that, another Heat vision could be created, Russell Westbrook passing to Blake Griffin in little over a year’s time, after the Durant-less Oklahoma City Thunder and the forever jinxed Los Angeles Clippers suffer one more playoff demise.
That $20 million that Wade deemed insufficient for 2017-18? Now allowing for whale overkill next July, in Pat Riley parlance.
And yet with all dreams that are deferred come seasons that become marginalized, which certainly appears what lies ahead unless Chris Bosh makes the return that still looms more abstract than tangible.
In discussing the Heat’s bridges from 2006 NBA champion to 2011-14 appearances in the NBA Finals to the climb back to Game 7 of the Eastern Conference semifinals this past season, Riley spoke of the occasional need to accept a lottery reality, as unpalatable as that remains to the Heat president.
Listen to most draft experts and they’ll tell you the 2017 NBA draft sets up as one of the best in years, especially at the top. And, yes, the Heat own their own selection next June, no lottery restrictions attached.
If Riley is as committed to the free-agent process as he was before the harsh reality of his Durant setback, then which sets up as more meaningful to the next class of top-tier free agents: A team that claws its way to a playoff seed by ceding time to nominal veterans such as Ellington, Babbitt and James Johnson? Or a team that shows, even with the anticipated growing pains, continued growth from next-wave talents such as Hassan Whiteside, Justise Winslow, Josh Richardson and, once again, Tyler Johnson?
And that does not even get to the lottery angle that made the Cleveland Cavaliers so desirable to LeBron James, whose 2014 defection contributed to this recalibration.
When the line was drawn with Wade with a contract offer seemingly designed for this very result — freedom to re-master in the 2017 offseason — the emphasis changed from immediately pushing closer to the Cavaliers in the East to setting up something different going forward.
The last major makeover, the rebuild from the 2006 title, delivered to 601 Biscayne Boulevard the likes of Mark Blount, Blake Ahearn, Kasib Powell, Marcus Banks, Jamario Moon, Yakhouba Diawara and Stephane Lasme.
In that respect, what was mined amid Sunday’s signing frenzy stands as a significant upgrade. This is not the depths of the 2007-08 Heat who went 15-67.
Not with Whiteside in the middle, Goran Dragic at point guard, the promise of Winslow and Richardson, the hope for Bosh.
And not with an Eastern Conference where the New York Knicks are attempting to make the playoffs with a roster resembling the 2012 Chicago Bulls and the 2016 Chicago Bulls are attempting to return to the playoffs with a roster resembling the 2010 Eastern Conference All-Star team.
But it is an undeniable reset. And a time to consider whether the priority should be growth from within or the long view to the start of a free-agency period more than 11 months away.
About the Author
