The Summer of 2017
This is the summer where the Miami Heat largely sealed its fate as begin OK with just being OK in the NBA, whether Pat Riley and company want to believe it or not. Miami went out and signed both Dion Waiters ($52 million) and James Johnson ($60 million) to four-year contracts – and not at reasonable numbers.
To make matters worse, Waiters still hasn’t played a game since being shut down after a handful of games last season. Neither player, however, is playing at the same level in which they played at in 2016-17.
They also signed Kelly Olynyk ($50 million) to a four-year deal, though he has played great during his tenure with the team.
But two of these contracts will prove to be terrible for Miami, especially considering that the two simply aren’t performing up to par. One still hasn’t even taken the floor this season. To make matters even worse, depending on who you believe, one of the reasons why the Jimmy Butler to Miami deal fell through was because they didn’t want to take on Waiters’ contract.
Because of the contracts that they signed in 2017, the Heat couldn’t make any moves during the summer of 2018.