Heat doesn’t make a trade Thursday ahead of deadline. Where things stand and buyout options

It turns out the Miami Heat’s big move came two weeks ahead of Thursday’s NBA trade deadline.

Trade deadline day was quiet for the Heat this year, as the front office allowed the day to pass without making more changes to its roster after acquiring guard Terry Rozier in a trade with the Charlotte Hornets on Jan. 23. The Heat sent guard Kyle Lowry and a lottery-protected first-round pick to the Hornets to add Rozier.

With the Heat opting not to make another trade before Thursday’s 3 p.m. deadline, the front office continued to show confidence in the current roster despite its inconsistent and sometimes shaky play through the first three-plus months of the season.

Heat trade deadline tracker: After acquiring Rozier, is another move coming? Olynyk off board

The Heat, which is in the middle of a three-day break before hosting the Boston Celtics on Sunday afternoon, entered Thursday in seventh place in the Eastern Conference with a 28-24 record. The Heat holds the NBA’s 23rd-ranked offensive rating and ninth-ranked defensive rating this season while owning a 9-16 record in games against teams that entered Thursday with a winning record.

While that’s not where the Heat wants to be in the standings after making it to the East finals in three of the last four seasons and NBA Finals in two of the last four seasons, the team’s play has been trending in a positive direction recently. The Heat responded to a seven-game losing streak by winning four of its last five games, including a 116-104 victory over the San Antonio Spurs on Wednesday night at Kaseya Center.

The Heat moves forward with a roster led by Bam Adebayo and Jimmy Butler, and a rotation around this duo that includes Tyler Herro, Rozier, Caleb Martin, Duncan Robinson, Kevin Love, Josh Richardson and Jaime Jaquez Jr.

The five players on standard deals currently out of the Heat’s rotation are Haywood Highsmith, Nikola Jovic, Thomas Bryant, Orlando Robinson and Dru Smith, who is out for the rest of the season after undergoing surgery on his right knee in late December.

The Heat’s combination of limited draft assets and lack of chunky tradeable salaries made finding a deal ahead of Thursday’s deadline challenging.

Of the 14 trade-eligible Heat players on standard contracts, four (Richardson, Bryant, Orlando Robinson and Smith) are on minimum contracts, two others (Highsmith and Love) are on low-salary contracts under $4 million and another two (Jaquez and Jovic) are on cheap rookie contracts. Because of the NBA’s salary-matching rules, even combining three of those small contracts would have only worked to acquire a player making roughly between $6 million and $11 million this season, and that type of deal would have left the Heat with multiple open roster spots.

The other six Heat players on standard contracts eligible to be traded were Butler, Adebayo, Herro, Rozier, Duncan Robinson and Caleb Martin.

Nobody expected Adebayo or Butler to be traded.

Trading Herro in the middle of the season was always considered unlikely. The Heat remains high on Herro’s potential, and the team has only considered trading him for All-Star talent.

Rozier was eligible to be dealt prior to Thursday’s deadline even after the Heat just acquired him in a trade, but he was not able to be aggregated with other contracts in a deal. It would have been surprising for the Heat to even consider trading Rozier after using a first-round pick to add him to its roster a few weeks ago.

The Heat also decided to keep Duncan Robinson and Martin on the roster as important players in its current rotation. Robinson is one of the Heat’s only high-volume three-point shooters, and Martin was recently promoted to a starting role after beginning the season as a reserve.

While Robinson is under contract with the Heat for next season at $19.4 million, Martin is expected to opt out of his $7.1 million player option to become an unrestricted free agent this upcoming summer. But the Heat made the decision to keep Martin past Thursday’s deadline because of how much he helps the roster this season, even if it means losing him for nothing in free agency this offseason.

But the addition of long-term money — with the Heat trading Lowry’s expiring contract for Rozier — leaves the Heat in this predicament heading into the offseason:

Unless the Heat signs any free agents or buyout players to a multi-year contract before the end of this season, Miami will enter the offseason with seven players under iron-clad contracts for next season: Butler ($48.8 million), Adebayo ($34.8 million), Herro ($29 million), Rozier ($24.9 million), Duncan Robinson ($19.4 million), Jaquez ($3.7 million) and Jovic ($2.5 million).

Four players have player options: Martin ($7.1 million), Love ($4 million), Richardson ($3 million) and Bryant ($2.8 million).

The Heat also has $2.1 million options on Orlando Robinson and Smith. Highsmith will become a free agent in July.

If Martin opts out of his $7.1 million salary for next season as expected, the Heat would have about $181 in cap commitments if Love, Richardson and Bryant opt into their salaries for next season and about $177 million if they don’t. (Teams must carry cap holds of about $2 million for empty roster spots up to 14, until the roster positions are filled by players, at which point those cap holds would be replaced by actual salaries.)

Teams have been told that next season’s luxury tax line is expected to be $172 million. The first apron is expected to be $179 million. The second apron, with multiple particularly punitive restrictions, is set to be $190 million.

So with its current payroll, the Heat would likely lack the ability to re-sign Martin and avoid the second apron if Martin commands a contract in the $10 million per year range. The Heat appears determined to avoid the second apron in future years. But that’s an issue for the future.

As for more immediate NBA transaction news, teams ahead of the Heat in the East standings were very active around Thursday’s deadline, according to multiple reports.

The New York Knicks continued adding to their roster, trading Quentin Grimes, Evan Fournier, Malachi Flynn, Ryan Arcidiacono and two second-round picks to the Detroit Pistons to acquire Bojan Bogdanovic and Alec Burks on Thursday. The Knicks landed OG Anunoby, Burks, Precious Achiuwa and Bogdanovic via trades in recent weeks.

In the wake of losing All-Star center Joel Embiid for an extended stretch because of a knee injury, the Philadelphia 76ers acquired Buddy Hield in a trade with the Indiana Pacers on Thursday. The 76ers sent out Marcus Morris, Furkan Korkmaz and three second-round picks to add Hield.

The Celtics added Xavier Tillman in a trade with the Memphis Grizzlies on Wednesday to bolster their frontcourt depth. The Celtics dealt Lamar Stevens and two second-round picks to the Grizzlies to get that deal done.

The Milwaukee Bucks and the 76ers also teamed up on a trade Thursday, swapping backup point guards. The Bucks traded Cam Payne to the 76ers and the 76ers traded Patrick Beverley to the Bucks.

And after acquiring two-time All-Star forward Pascal Siakam in a trade last month, the Indiana Pacers traded Marcus Morris, a second-round pick and cash to the San Antonio Spurs to add Doug McDermott on Thursday.

WHAT’S NEXT?

Now, the Heat’s attention turns to the buyout market. With 14 players signed to standard contracts, the Heat has one open spot on its 15-man roster.

But there’s one new wrinkle as part of the new Collective Bargaining Agreement that limits the Heat’s buyout market options.

Under terms of the new CBA, beginning this season, teams that are $7 million above the $165.2 million luxury tax threshold cannot sign any released player with a pre-waiver salary of more than $12.4 million.

The Heat falls into that category with a current team salary of about $176 million, which puts it more than $7 million above the $165.3 million luxury tax threshold and also above the $172.3 million “first apron.” But the Heat is nearly $7 million below the $182.7 million “second apron.”

This rules out buyout candidates like Davis Bertans ($17 million salary this season) and Marcus Morris ($17.1 million salary this season), among others for the Heat if they should become available in the coming days or weeks. Spencer Dinwiddie ($18.9 million salary this season) and Joe Harris ($19.9 million salary this season) are already available after being waived on Thursday, but they’re also not eligible to sign with the Heat this season because their pre-waiver salaries are over $12.4 million.

But other buyout candidates like Danilo Gallinari ($6.8 million salary this season), Otto Porter Jr. ($6.3 million salary this season), Thaddeus Young ($8 million salary this season), Delon Wright ($8.2 million salary this season), Robin Lopez ($3.2 million salary this season), James Bouknight ($4.6 million salary this season) and Andre Drummond ($3.4 million salary this season), among others are eligible to sign with the Heat if they become available because their pre-waiver salaries are under $12.4 million.

Harry Giles ($2.2 million salary this season) Danuel House Jr. ($4.3 million salary this season) and Killian Hayes ($7.4 million salary this season), who were all released by their teams on Thursday, are also able to sign with the Heat as free agents.

Players must be waived by March 1 in order to be playoff eligible elsewhere and they can then sign with a new team up to the final day of the regular season.

The Heat has minimum contracts and the $5 million taxpayer mid-level exception to offer players on the buyout market.

The Heat could also opt to promote one of its three two-way contract players (Jamal Cain, RJ Hampton or Cole Swider) to a standard contract to fill the open spot on its 15-man roster. That would create an opening for Miami to sign another developmental prospect to a two-way deal.

For now, though, the Heat pushes forward with its current roster after choosing not to shake things up. The hope is the team’s best basketball of the season is ahead after an underwhelming start to the season.