Miami Heat: Ripple effects of Bam Adebayo’s max extension
By Duncan Smith
The Miami Heat are running it back
There are definitely worse teams to run it back with than this super-talented Miami Heat team. President Pat Riley is known for taking care of his guys when it comes time to pay up, and in recent years that’s meant overpaying players like James Johnson, Kelly Olynyk and Dion Waiters, but Riley is also a mad genius and can flip those pieces into positive value trades, like the one that sent out Johnson and Waiters and brought back Andre Iguodala and Jae Crowder.
Loyalty doesn’t matter much in the NBA these days, but that’s not the case in Miami. Given their track record of being loyal to the players who deliver for them, signing Adebayo to this extension now rather than waiting until next summer to woo Giannis Antetokounmpo makes sense.
Along with Adebayo, the Heat have already re-signed Meyers Leonard and Dragic from last season’s squad, and while they lost Crowder to the Phoenix Suns, they did replace him with Avery Bradley. All of these are on short-term deals with good team control, so while things remain in place for next season on the floor, Riley may have more devious plans for next offseason.