8 NBA Teams That Had a Horrible Summer
Miami Heat
Major Additions: Kelly Olynyk (free agent)
Major Subtractions: None
Major Problems: Ladies and germs, meet the winner of the NBA's Summer of Inertia Award, your Miami Heat.
On one hand, standing pat wasn't a horrible thing for head coach Erik Spoelstra's crew. After going 11-30 over the first 41 games, they flipped the script and finished the season at .500, going 30-11 in the second half.
History was made last night!
Miami became the only team in @nbahistory to reach .500 after being at least 19 games under in the same season pic.twitter.com/kQcvo3JnKh
— Miami HEAT (@MiamiHEAT) April 13, 2017
And here's how they did it:
Erik Spoelstra’s Coach of the Year case, in one graphic: Guided the @MiamiHEAT to the most unbelievable turnaround I’ve seen pic.twitter.com/lQAeDokwrp
— Shane Young (@YoungNBA) April 13, 2017
The fact of the matter is, this summer wasn't about what the Heat did do, but rather what they didn't do, that being land free agent Gordon Hayward. After a terrific meeting with the team, the former Utah Jazzer inked with the Boston Celtics.
Bye-bye Gordo, hello screwed-up payroll.
This forced the Heat to spend a ton of money to retain their highest profile free agents, those being Dion Waiters (four years/$47 million plus incentives) and James Johnson (four years/$60 million). They also threw a boatload of ducats at Olynyk (four years/$45 million plus incentives), and next season, Tyler Johnson's salary amps up next year from $5.9 million to a whopping $19.3 million. So if you work in the Heat front office and you expect a raise, don't.
Cap issues and the lack of an alpha dog don't bode well for the Heat's chances to do much of anything during the era of LeBron. Maybe they can take solace in the fact that they're not alone.
Takeaway: Welp, since Miami returns most of last season's roster, we'll get to find out whether that 30-11 run was a fluke.
