Besides letting P.J. Tucker depart to escape the hard cap, Barry Jackson of the Miami Herald reported about the Miami Heat’s choice to retain their roster intact after failing to trade for Kevin Durant or Donovan Mitchell yesterday.

 

Jackson also suggests that “Miami had a mulligan” and that the Heat could have given T.J. the entire $4.1 million bi-annual exception — or a little less — if they had known they would not be trading for Durant. Warren agreed to a contract worth at least $2.9 million with the Brooklyn Nets.

 

The same T.J. Warren, who spat with Jimmy Butler during a game in January 2020, hadn’t played since the first round when Butler and the Miami Heat swept the Indiana Pacers due to a foot ailment. Still, Jackson observes that Warren possesses the height and strength to play power forward.

 

According to Jackson, the Heat could have signed Dewayne Dedmon to a minimum deal rather than paying him $4.7 million this season and signed Warren and Caleb Martin with two different exclusions to keep under the tax line. Or else, Miami could have given Dedmon the deal he accepted, been hard-capped, and had a better squad than they do now.

 

The Dedmon contract seemed strange to me. The backup center performed excellently to open the previous campaign, even taking over as the starter when Bam Adebayo sustained a thumb injury that necessitated surgery. But as the 82-game season went on, he seemed to run out of gas. Tucker occasionally filled in as the backup five during the playoffs, and he later developed into a borderline rotation member.

 

So why do you propose a $4.7 million two-year contract to him? It’s possible that the Heat overpaid Dedmon to make him more tradeable. After Meyers Leonard lost his job in the rotation during Miami’s run to the Finals in the Bubble, the Heat signed him to a $9.4 million contract for the 2020–21 season. The Heat then acquired Trevor Ariza through a trade using his salary.

 

It’s one thing to enter the season without a reliable power forward solution. The Heat should have signed Warren if they hadn’t already addressed this problem by the trade deadline.