What’s next for the Heat? Pat Riley offers his thoughts entering an uncertain offseason

Miami Heat president Pat Riley began his annual season-ending press conference by setting the theme for the team’s offseason.

“What I’d like to talk about a little bit is that it doesn’t really — and I’ve used this phrase a lot — it doesn’t really make any difference what happens to you. It’s truly how you deal with it,” Riley said Thursday afternoon to kick off his 43-minute session with the media via Zoom.

Live blog: Miami Heat president Pat Riley assesses state of the franchise and the future

What happened to the Heat was an up-and-down season that included a disappointing ending, as it was swept out of the first round of the playoffs by the Milwaukee Bucks after making the NBA Finals last season. It marked just the second time in franchise history that the Heat has been swept in a best-of-seven series.

Now, Riley and the Heat will decide how they deal with it, as it enters the offseason with a roster that features just five players with guaranteed salaries for next season: Jimmy Butler ($36 million), Bam Adebayo ($28.1 million), Tyler Herro ($4 million), Precious Achiuwa ($2.7 million) and KZ Okpala ($1.8 million).

That means the Heat could have between $21 million and $27 million in cap space this summer unless it opts to operate as an over-the-cap team and leverage the Bird rights of its own free agents to bring back most of the roster. If Miami chooses to create cap space this offseason, it would have about $21 million in space if it extends $4.7 million qualifying offers to both Duncan Robinson and Kendrick Nunn to make them restricted free agents and about $27 million in space if it instead chooses to pull those qualifying offers to allow both to become unrestricted free agents and decrease their cap holds to $1.7 million.

“Regardless of what has happened during the regular season or during the playoffs, it doesn’t really make any difference of how, or what, it went down, it’s how you deal with it,” Riley repeated. “It’s how you come back from it and how you adapt. And so I have a pretty good idea, and I think we all do, about where we’re headed and what we have.

“We know what we have to do. We know the position that we’re in. We know that we have the flexibility that we need to go in a lot of different directions, and either stay the same, either add to the mix. We know what we have to do, and we’ll do it. The market will probably determine a lot of that, as we move forward. But I like the nucleus of our team.”

Riley then added that the Heat has a “great core with Jimmy and Bam, and regardless of how they performed in the playoffs, we didn’t make a mistake on those guys, that’s for sure.” And when asked about Herro, Riley called him “a core player. That’s all there is to it.”

Among the decisions the Heat has to make this offseason:

▪ The Heat has until Aug. 1 to decide on team options in the contracts of Goran Dragic and Andre Iguodala. Miami holds a $19.4 million option on Dragic and a $15 million option on Iguodala.

If the Heat declined both of their options for next season, Dragic and Iguodala would become unrestricted free agents but Miami would still retain their Bird rights and could exceed the salary cap to re-sign them up to their maximum salaries. But this would be done to retain them at a smaller salary than what their team options are worth.

▪ The Heat has the right to match any offer Robinson and Nunn receive from other teams, assuming Miami extends a qualifying offer to make them restricted free agents. How far will Miami go to retain Robinson and/or Nunn?

The 2021-22 cap hit for both would be a modest $4.7 million in this scenario, but their salaries will likely be at least six times larger than the $1.7 million salary they played on this past season. The Heat will likely want to avoid crossing the projected $136.6 million luxury-tax threshold for next season after finishing 2019-20 as a tax team, and the threat of the more punitive repeater tax (when a team is over the tax at least three times over a four-year period) looming.

“I applaud both of these guys for coming in with just very little reputation, no guarantees, and winning their jobs, winning their spots, winning their time,” Riley said of Robinson and Nunn. “They’ve had their ups and down, but young players will. But we like both of them and we’ll see what happens with both of them, when it comes to the market.”

▪ Butler is under contract through 2022-23, but he’s eligible for an extension from the Heat this offseason. The expectation is that Butler, who turns 32 in September, will seek a maximum four-year extension worth $181 million.

Will the Heat reward him for his All-NBA caliber play with a max extension? A four-year max extension would include salaries of $40.5 million for 2022-23, $43.8 million for 2023-24, $47 million for 2024-25 and $50.3 million for 2025-26 when he’ll be 36 years old, according to a breakdown from ESPN analyst and former Nets executive Bobby Marks.

“Somewhere along the line, you know when you have great players, All-NBA players, All-Defensive players, you know, players like Jimmy, that are high level, very impactful players for you that you’re going to have to pay them what their market value is,” Riley said when asked about the possibility of a Butler extension. “We haven’t really discussed that internally yet. But I know that’s something that has been out there, in the media, but it has not been discussed. And I’m sure that when the time comes, we’ll have a good conversation with Jimmy about that.”

▪ The Heat must also decide on how to proceed with impending free agent guard Victor Oladipo, who was acquired by the Heat via trade in March. But Oladipo was injured after playing in just four games for Miami, and he underwent surgery to repair the quadriceps tendon in his right knee on May 13.

Oladipo could be cleared to return to full contact basketball as early as November and he’s hopeful he’ll be able to play next season by February.

“He’ll be rehabbing with us until he’s healthy enough to get out of that cast,” Riley said. “I don’t even think there’s going to be any rehabbing going on right now at all. It’s just healing. He’s going to let it heal and heal and heal, and get strong and attach. From that standpoint, I think we’ll just monitor him, we’re going to work with him and then we’ll see what happens in August when we sit down and talk with him.”

The list of players on the Heat’s season-ending roster who will become free agents this offseason includes Oladipo, Trevor Ariza, Nemanja Bjelica, Nunn, Robinson, Udonis Haslem, Dewayne Dedmon, and two-way contract players Max Strus and Gabe Vincent. Miami also has until Aug. 1 to decide on the team options for Dragic, Iguodala and Omer Yurtseven ($1.5 million).

The Heat does not currently own a pick in this year’s NBA Draft and there’s no easy path to max-level cap space this offseason for a 2021 free-agent class that could be headlined by Chris Paul, Kawhi Leonard, Mike Conley and Kyle Lowry. But there’s the possibility of trades and sign-and-trade situations to overcome any cap hurdle Miami runs into.

“We’re not going to have a max slot, but we’re going to have a lot of room if we want to use that,” Riley said. “But there’s so many other ways that you improve your team. Obviously, we like our core. There are trades that you can make. There’s sign-and-trades, there’s free agency, we have room, exceptions. Whichever way you want to go, if you want to be a cap team or a room team, will direct us in that manner.”

Before Thursday’s Zoom session came to an end, Riley made sure to close his season-ending session press conference with a message for fans.

“Have a good summer, and there will be a lot of news coming along the way,” Riley said. “But, again, just the last shout out to our fans, and to everybody is that we’ll be back.”