A Brief Guide to Free Agency for Miami Heat fans

With NBA free agency starting, and players being able to sign as of next week, I think it has to be mentioned that we shouldnt expect guys to take less money. They took less last time, and they should get what they're worth. The salary cap in basketball is ridiculous, and limits their salaries. The way they set things up after what happened 4 years ago, they made it harder to keep 3 players together. All year, I looked around the landscape of the NBA and I wont lie, there are places that LeBron and/or Bosh could go that would probably make more sense for them, including monetarily, and could probably produce a lot of really interesting teams. I wont blame them for leaving if that happens. I am putting my trust in Pat Riley on this, but again, I wont blame him if these guys leave or dont want to take pay cuts. The fact is, we need these guys to take pay cuts at this point....LeBron supposedly (and I wont believe that until I hear/see it from him) says he wants close to a max deal or the max, which is more than understandable b/c of the reasons I mentioned, but also b/c he has never been the highest paid player on his own team, which is obviously ridiculous. Shane Battier retired, and we already needed more athleticism on the wing, and now we need to replace him as well. There are also multiple free agents we can target depending on what situation we are in. Probably the scenario we could really do something with would be if LeBron signed a 3 year/$62 million deal (Year 1 $20mil/Year 2 $21mil/Year 3 $21mil) with 2 player options worth $22 million on the back of that, Chris Bosh signed a 4 Year/$64 million deal (Year 1 $15mil/Year 2 $15mil/Year 3 $17mil/Year 4 $17mil) with 2 player options on the back of that worth $18 million on the back of that, Dwyane Wade signed a 3 year/$44-47 million deal (Year 1 $12-15mil/Year 2 $15mil/Year 3 $17mil) with 2 player options at the back of that worth $16&17 million respectively on the back of that. That would put us around $50 million committed, and would leave us somewhere between $10-15 million in cap space depending on what the cap is increasing to this year. We also should have the mid level exception and other exceptions that we could use if we need to. There are many free agents to target that could help us. I personally would stay away from giving anyone anything more than 3 years. I see us going after Shawn Marion for sure, and hopefully for the veterans minimum. Then there are Trevor Ariza and Spencer Hawes out there, and those 2 would be PERFECT for us, but Lance Stephenson is a free agent, Luol Deng is a free agent, Chandler Parsons is a restricted free agent, but Houston wants to go after a max contract player, so it would be possible that they wouldnt match a certain offer. Those 3 are probably out of our price range b/c of the demand for them. There are plenty of other interesting names out there. It would be great to address the wing with a good defender who can knock down shots and has the athleticism and length I mentioned previously. I named a few for that spot. Hawes would help us stretch the floor and he is a really good passer. I'm personally interested in Thabo Sefolosha. We need to decide on what we're doing at the PG position. Its hard to say we need to make a change there to be honest. I like having both Chalmers and Cole on this team, and they do important things; Napier is a stud, but I dont know for sure what he can do at this level, and you dont want to lose what those other guys have done for this team. Continued depth would be nice, and probably at this point, if they added any of the big names I mentioned especially, they would be targeting minimum type players. We need added depth and probably more athleticism (Birdman type of player) at a big man spot. As I said, I trust Pat Riley. I'm also interested in what a lot of these other teams do b/c there is a lot of talent out there this year, but I just wanted to make sure everyone is prepared for whats happening. Dont have too high expectations, and please dont embarrass South Florida sports fans by being SALTY if things dont go the way we would hope