Miami Heat: Playing buy or sell with 2017 free agents
By Frank Urbina
Five players from the Miami Heat’s 2016-17 team are impending free agents, and a sixth has a team option on his deal. We play buy or sell with each.
The Miami Heat have a difficult summer ahead of them. On July 1, free agency begins, and with it, mayhem will reign supreme in the NBA. Will the Heat get swept up in it, or do they have a plan in place to avoid getting caught with their pants down once the dust settles?
Sure, Miami will have a ton of money to spend — between $30 million and $40 million to be exact — with Chris Bosh coming off the payroll. The question is, though: How should they use it?
Should they go whale hunting and try to land a Blake Griffin or a Gordon Hayward? One must also wonder how enticed they are by the prospect of shelling out cash to bring back Dion Waiters and James Johnson — two guys who were on extremely team-friendly deals in 2016-17, but played their ways to huge paydays in free agency.
What’s more, role players like Udonis Haslem, Luke Babbitt and Willie Reed are also set to hit the open market. What should Miami do with them?
As a fun exercise, we’re going to play buy or sell with every impending free agent on the Heat’s roster. Let’s jump right into it.