ORLANDO, Fla. _ A year ago, the NBA trade deadline was a taxing period for the Miami Heat, with seemingly a singular focus of escaping the NBA's punitive financial penalty and long-term salary-cap implications of operating above the luxury tax.
So Tyler Johnson was dealt. And Wayne Ellington. Each while a member of the rotation. One final move, the excising of Rodney McGruder, ended the process the final week of the season.
Now, as Thursday's trade deadline approaches, the Heat again are in the luxury tax, this time $4.7 million above the tax line.
But much has changed:
_ A year ago, the Heat were a middling 25-27 at the trading deadline, as likely to be headed to the lottery (where they landed) as the playoffs (where they didn't).
_ Last year, the payment to teams not in the tax was $3.1 million. This year, the projected payoff is currently projected at $715,000 per team.
_ Last year, the "repeater" tax potentially stood in play, for teams in the tax any four years over a five-year period. That's basically a tax on top of tax. With the Heat out of the tax last season, that clock has been reset. The team is likely to be out of the tax the next two offseasons, as well.
So the question now becomes whether a tax cut will be a consideration when Pat Riley, Andy Elisburg, Adam Simon and the rest of the Heat front office move into their trade bunker.
And, for that matter, whether a dip below the 2020 tax line of $132.6 million is even possible.
For the Heat, based on their current salary structure, anything short of a blockbuster might not be enough, lacking the type of mid-tier salary to make it as simple as offloading a single player.
The only Heat players earning between minimal salaries and those in eight figures are Tyler Herro, at $3.6 million, and Bam Adebayo, at $3.5 million. And they're not going anywhere.
Otherwise, the most logical (but not necessarily practical) approach would be trading a Kelly Olynyk ($12.7 million) or Meyers Leonard ($11.3 million) for a player making sufficiently less to realize the needed savings to avoid the tax.
"I think if they were a team that's kind of hanging on to eighth or a team that's ninth and a game out, that's a move you look to shed salary, and I don't think there's any consequences in your locker room," ESPN analyst and former Nets executive Bobby Marks said in a phone interview.
"But I think it's a lot different when you're in that two to three range, where they are, to kind of go out and save significantly. I think it's a lot different than what they did with Rodney McGruder, when they waived him at the end of the year. I think this team certainly is top four, playoffs. And to go out and shave money at the sake of a starter, it could come back and bite you."
Marks, like many in the league, praised Elisburg and the Heat for the creativity in escaping the luxury tax last season.
But he also does not view the Heat as a franchise that in any way would jeopardize playoff hopes for savings. The McGruder move, in fact, was made only after the Heat effectively were eliminated from 2019 playoff contention.
"I don't think that's the kind of direction for them," Marks said. "I don't see that. I don't think that's their DNA, when it comes to that, when you have a competitive, quality playoff-level team."
Another way to escape the tax would be a buyout agreement with a player by the March 1 deadline for playoff eligibility elsewhere. The problem for the Heat in that regard is that both James Johnson and Dion Waiters have an additional year left on their contracts, with neither necessarily viewed elsewhere as a boost to a playoff team.
With payroll, for purposes of the tax, frozen at the end of the regular season, it's also not as if an offseason Waiters deal before June 30 would aid in tax relief.
"Those savings do not apply when it comes to saving the tax," Marks noted. "And I don't see the market for Dion right now."
