How COVID-19 will impact Miami Heat’s blueprint in next few years and its star pursuit

If there’s one impact that COVID-19 has had on team-building for franchises with multiple max players on their books — including the Miami Heat — it would be this:

For the summer of 2022 — when several stars can become free agents — it now makes sense to operate as an over-the-cap team and execute sign-and-trades for free agents, as opposed to stripping the roster to clear out cap space.

According to ESPN, the NBA is projecting a cap of only $115.7 million in 2022-23, well below what it would have been if there had not been a pandemic.

During that summer of 2022, the unrestricted free agent class could include James Harden, Kevin Durant, Kyrie Irving, Bradley Beal, Steph Curry, Julius Randle, Russell Westbrook and Jusif Nurkic.

But even if the Heat jettisoned every player on the roster excluding Jimmy Butler and Bam Adebayo, it still wouldn’t have the cap space to sign any of those players to a contract if the cap ends up at that $115.7 million projection.

Here’s why: Adebayo is scheduled to make $30.34 million in 2022-23. Butler is due to make $37.6 million in 2022-23 if he exercises his player option for that year or $40.5 million if he gets the max extension that he covets this summer.

That’s at least $67.9 million in salary, even if Butler stays at $37.6 million for 2022-23. The first-year max for all of the aforementioned players (excluding Randle and Nurkic) would be $42 million under the current cap projections.

Randle and Nurkic would have $36 million first-year max numbers because they will not have been in the league 10 years by the summer of 2022.

So Butler, Adebayo and Harden would put the Heat payroll at $110 million to $113 million, depending on whether Butler gets the max extension. The Heat couldn’t sign Harden or Irving or any other max free agent with cap space in that scenario even if it traded the two other players under contract for 2022-23 (Tyler Herro, Precious Achiuwa) for only future draft picks.

Here’s why: There would be cap holds of $1 million or more on each of the Heat’s nine empty roster spots in that scenario, meaning the Heat would (illegally) exceed the cap if it signed Harden or Irving to the max and had Butler and Adebayo and nobody else under contract.

It might be possible to have Butler (without a max extension), Randle and Adebayo and nine players on minimum deals, but where does that get you? Is that even a team that makes it to the second round?

At the moment, the only Heat players under contract for 2022-23 besides Butler and Adebayo are team options on Herro (at $5.7 million) and Achiuwa (at $2.9 million).

So unless the Heat jettisons Butler or Adebayo — which would be a surprise — the Heat likely will need to stay over the cap in 2022-23 and hope that a star player tells his team that he wants to be traded to the Heat that summer of 2022, which was the case with Butler two years ago.

The bottom line for Miami: It could actually help the Heat to clog its cap with a couple of multiyear deals this summer, provided they are players who would be attractive to other teams in an eventual trade for a star.

Say, for example, the Heat signs Kyle Lowry to a two-year, $50 million deal this summer — either using cap space or through a sign-and-trade — and signs Bobby Portis to a two-year, $21 million deal using its midlevel exception.

Both are hypotheticals, though there’s a decent chance Lowry ends up with the Heat, and Portis could be considered in the search for a stretch four.

That would give the Heat two contracts that could be used in a sign-and-trade if one of the Class of 2022 stars (Durant, Irving, Beal, Harden) wants to come to the Heat in a year.

Those two contracts alone (Lowry, Portis) — plus draft picks and perhaps Herro — would be enough to facilitate a sign-and-trade for Beal if he tells the Wizards next summer that he wants to be traded to the Heat.

If the Heat gives Duncan Robinson a multiyear contract this summer — think something in the range of four years and $60 million — that deal also could be used to facilitate a trade.

So could Herro’s deal. So could Achiuwa’s.

The Heat theoretically also could pick up Goran Dragic’s team option ($19.4 million) and Andre Iguodala’s team option ($15 million) next month and trade them for Lowry or a distressed asset such as Kristaps Porzingis or (not likely) Kemba Walker and use the Porzingis or Walker contracts to help facilitate a trade for a disgruntled star sometime in 2022.

The risk for the Heat would be staying below the projected $140 million tax line in 2022-2023. And if the Heat makes a sign-and-trade for Beal or Irving or any other free agent next summer, it would be hard capped at $146 million in 2022-23.

If the 2022-23 Heat hypothetically had Beal at $42 million, Butler at $40.5 million, Adebayo at $30.4 million and Robinson at $15 million on its 2022-23 books, that would be $128 million and leave Miami with $18 million to fill out eight roster spots and stay under the hard cap. That’s doable.

There would even be room for Herro in that scenario, though Washington presumably would request him in a Beal sign-and-trade scenario.

So even though it was tempting — in the many years pre-pandemic — to simply clear out space to sign a max player, the blueprint for teams with two max contracts on their books (like the Heat has) seems to has changed in the post-COVID era, with the league taking a financial hit from the pandemic.

Instead of dropping the cap dramatically this season, the NBA opted to offset the losses over a longer period of time by reducing the cap modestly over a three- or four-year period.

That means not only a projected cap of $115.7 million in 2022-23, but a projected cap of just $119.4 million in 2023-24.

For perspective, before the pandemic, the cap for 2021-22 was expected to be $125 million. Instead it likely will be $112 million.

So if the Heat signs multiple players to multiyear contracts this summer, there would be sound reasoning behind it, because Miami will need cap-facilitating contracts to eventually trade for a star.

NEWS NOTE

Nigeria’s 49-man preliminary roster for the Tokyo Olympics this summer includes three Heat players: Achiuwa, KZ Okpala and Gabe Vincent.

Vincent already represented Nigeria at the 2019 FIBA World Cup, but Achiuwa and Okpala are new additions to the preliminary roster for the Olympics.

Like the United States, Nigeria is one of eight countries that have already qualified for the Tokyo Olympics.

Golden State Warriors assistant coach Mike Brown is the head coach of the Nigerian national team, which is known as the D’Tigers.

Nigeria will spend time preparing for the Olympics in July in Las Vegas, and will face the United States in a July 10 exhibition.

Achiuwa, Okpala and Vincent are three of the 13 NBA players on Nigeria’s 49-man preliminary roster vying for the 12 spots on the country’s Olympic team.

With the Olympic men’s basketball competition beginning on July 24 and running through Aug. 7, it could prevent Achiuwa, Okpala and Vincent from representing the Heat in summer league this year if they are named to Nigeria’s 12-man Olympic roster.

No African country has ever medaled in the Olympics in men’s basketball or advanced past the preliminary stage.

Miami Herald Heat beat writer Anthony Chiang contributed to this report.

Here’s my Wednesday Miami Dolphins piece with lots of notes.

Here’s my Wednesday Miami Hurricanes piece with a bunch of nuggets.