Ira Winderman: Rats off a ship? Nah, but Heat seemingly have to cast some salary ballast overboard

MIAMI — As the Miami Heat face the possibilities of landing in the most punitive tier of the NBA’s new collective-bargaining agreement, there could have been an easy out for almost all of what now stand as impending concerns:

They simply could have retained Kyle Lowry to the end of the just-completed season, allowed his $29.7 million salary to come off the books on the final year of his contract, and then entered this offseason with ample flexibility.

Instead, Pat Riley and his front office did a very Heat thing:

They chose to live in the moment, prioritize the 2024 playoffs, by trading Lowry and a conditional first-round pick for Terry Rozier.

Then Rozier hurt his neck the final week of the regular season, missed the postseason, and the Heat went bust in the first round of the playoffs against the Boston Celtics.

Now, with Rozier on the team’s books for $24.9 million for next season, major decisions lie ahead for Riley and his front office, with the calculator of General Manager Andy Elisburg assuredly to be ever present.

Why? Because if every potential element of the current payroll remains in place — from Kevin Love, Josh Richardson and Thomas Bryant picking up their 2024-25 player options, to Caleb Martin not opting out of his $7.1 million player option for next season — the Heat will be a second-apron team.

While the term “second apron” might sound benign, it is not. Such a level of overall payroll places limitations on future first-round picks that can be dealt. Even more significantly, it prohibits teams from aggregating contracts in a trade, in essence making teams ineligible to send out multiple players to add a single player,  a staple of the Heat way of doing business for decades (Alonzo Mourning, Tim Hardaway, Shaquille O’Neal, Goran Dragic, Jimmy Butler, etc.).

“You have to put a pencil to what the cost is going to be in the collateral damage of going over the first and second apron and then repeater tax,” Riley said during his season-ending media session this past week. “This is a business, as well as it is anything else.”

Arguably now more than ever.

In essence, if the Heat plan to do business as they have for years, it assuredly means shedding some of what is on the books.

So who could be gone?

Jimmy Butler: As if the week’s discussion of time missed and a potential extension hadn’t already put Butler front and center, there is also the matter of the $48.8 million he is due next season.

Arguably no single move would as easily (and as costly to a win-now attitude) get the Heat out of cap-tax-apron jail as a move of Butler.

For example, should the Philadelphia 76ers utilize their abundance of salary-cap space on Paul George, the Los Angeles Clippers, in such a sign-and-trade transaction with the 76ers, then could take Butler’s salary into a trade exception created by such a move with George.

If the Heat were to, say, then take Norman Powell back (due $19.2 million next season) from the Clippers (plus potentially draft choices), it would provide immediate and significant cap-tax-apron leeway.

Tyler Herro: No sooner was Rozier acquired from the Hornets with his similar skill set, then there were questions about whether the two would complement or duplicate. Then Herro missed 20 games with a foot issue, Rozier the end of the season with his neck issue.

With Herro on the books for $29 million next season, the price of redundancy could prove too costly. But the question this summer, as it had been for previous summers, could be whether there would be a taker interested enough to allow the Heat to result with salary savings.

Terry Rozier: Considering the Heat threw in what could turn into an unprotected first-round pick in the deal with Charlotte for Rozier, it would seem almost unfathomable that Riley then would turn around and offload Rozier for cap-tax-apron savings. That would not be a good look.

Among the reasons the Heat were believed to have been so willing to take on Rozier was the possibility of eventually aggregating Rozier’s contract in a trade for a bigger star. That is why avoiding the second apron is so essential if Rozier remains.

Duncan Robinson: Yes, it seems the Heat always wind up circling back in this direction, arguably through no fault of Robinson’s.

At $19.4 million for next season, Robinson being offloaded for little in return would help ease the ledger. but then who exactly shoots the 3-pointers?

Such an offloading effectively would have the Heat trading Robinson for Cole Swider.

Caleb Martin: As mentioned, Martin holds a $7.1 million player option for next season, almost assuredly to opt out.

But this is where the previously mentioned names come into play. Should the Heat move one of their bulkier contracts from those listed above, it could afford, under the punitive apron system, the possibility of not only retaining Martin, but also Haywood Highsmith, as well as adding a contributor at a mid-level exception.

Riley spoke at his media session about the value of depth. The context of that comment was not sacrificing too much depth amid a star search.

But with the new salary-cap rules, a case could be made for the Heat letting go of something big in order to ultimately make greater net gains.

IN THE LANE

LAST MAN STANDING: With the Heat and the team’s holdovers from last year’s run to the NBA Finals eliminated in the first round, it leaves Max Strus as the lone player from last season’s Heat playoff roster still active in the postseason. In addition to the Heat bowing out, Gabe Vincent went out in the first round with the Los Angeles Lakers, Cody Zeller in the first round with the New Orleans Pelicans, Omer Yurtseven missed the playoffs with the Utah Jazz, Udonis Halsem retired after last year’s playoffs and Victor Oladipo was out of the league this past season, amid his latest round of injury rehab. “We love each other. We love playing. We want to keep going,” Strus said to Cleveland.com of his teammates in Cleveland, after the Cavaliers survived the first round in seven games against the Orlando Magic. “We knew that the first round was not just a success for us. That would’ve been a failure. We’ve advanced and we’re going to have that same motto in the second round. Keep winning. Be greedy.”

DURANT … AGAIN: Has there been a junction in Kevin Durant‘s career when rumors about his future did not include the Heat? So here we are again amid the Phoenix Suns’ first-round demise and subsequent firing of coach Frank Vogel. This time the conjecture comes, of all places, from the Nightcap podcast of former NFL players Chad Johnson and Shannon Sharpe. “I talked to him, I talked to KD,” Johnson said. “He said, you know, he would have no problem coming down to Miami if it made sense (in terms of) what pieces the Heat are able to keep and surround him with to make sure they have a chance to be able to continue (to chase) a title.” For his part, Durant has not commented about the podcast. But it’s not as if a dialogue between the teams would be difficult, with former Heat forward James Jones the (at least for now) Suns’ general manager. As for Johnson somehow becoming an NBA insider, he said on the podcast “Listen, I’m not into basketball and people like KD and LeBron and some of these other players that I know, they confide in me.”

RUNNING IT BACK: After contributing to three backbreaking losses for the Heat, including in the play-in round opener, former Heat guard Kyle Lowry apparently will be back as a Heat opponent next season. Dealt by the Heat in January to the Charlotte Hornets along with first-round pick for Terry Rozier, and then having moved on to his hometown Philadelphia 76ers in a buyout, Lowry, 38, said he plans to be back somewhere for season No. 19. “We’ll see what happens in the next couple months,” Lowry, an impending free agent, told the Philadelphia Inquirer. A return to the 76ers at the veteran minimum is a possibility. “As a guy who’s been in the league a long time,” Lowry said, “I was so happy I got the opportunity to play with these guys and be around them.”

LOTTERY OUTLOOK: A year ago, the NBA draft lottery was transformative, with Victor Wembanyama‘s rights going to the San Antonio Spurs. But otherwise, it determined the selection order for a group of prospects hardly of the pedigree to dramatically alter the landscape. In that regard, it’s not as if the Eastern Conference outlook will be dramatically altered for the Heat with Sunday’s outcome, with the Heat again merely spectators. While the Detroit Pistons and Washington Wizards are co-top seeds, each with a 14% chance at the top pick and 52.13% chance for one of the top four selections, it’s not as if either is a single selection from contention. Ditto for the Charlotte Hornets, who are the third seed in the random-but-weighted drawing for the top four selections, with a 13.3% chance for the top pick and a 50.28% chance for one of the top four selections. In fact, the great intrigue regarding Eastern Conference participants might be the Toronto Raptors, who are seeded No. 6 in the process. If the Raptors fall below the No. 6 pick by virtue of the lottery outcome, then their pick would go to the Spurs.

NUMBER

11. Postseasons since a player last went all 48 minutes in at least four playoffs games, which Josh Hart has done this postseason for the New York Knicks. Heat forward Jimmy Butler was last to do it, when he did it five times in the 2013 playoffs for the Chicago Bulls, under current Knicks coach Tom Thibodeau, including three times against the Heat in that year’s Eastern Conference semifinals.