As of right now, the Miami Heat have a payroll just above $87 million — that is $28 million over the salary cap and $15.6 million over the luxury tax line.
Which will mean about $30 million in taxes on top of the existing salary load — a $117 million bill total. Maybe the Nets wouldn’t balk at that number, but basically everyone else would.
The Heat could shave $10 million or more off that bill by using the amnesty provision on a player such as Joel Anthony or Mike Miller, but they don’t plan to do it team president Pat Riles said, reports the Associated Press.Heat President Pat Riley said Friday that the team does not currently plan to use its one-time amnesty option as a way of lightening its looming tax load, with the team’s focus instead being on simply finding ways to get better.
“Right now, we’re not using amnesty, no,” Riley said….
“We want to win and we want to win again next year and we’re going to try to do everything we can to do that,” Riley said. “What I said at the end of the season is what I meant. I want to try to keep this team intact as long as we can because we have a championship basketball team here and continuity being, I think the most important thing to when it comes to winning championships ... I would hate to break it up.”
Pat Riley is smart enough to know that this roster, as constructed, is not going to win three years from now. He knows some big changes are coming.
But you don’t break up a team that is back-to-back NBA champs and has been to two straight finals. Look for the Heat to start making changes a year from now, a discussion that Riley will involve LeBron James in (to help keep him). But for right now he is bringing the band back together.