Miami Heat have a direct means to free up $30M+ in cap space

At first glance, it seems like the Miami Heat are pretty locked into their current contract situations and would not be able to acquire Kawhi, but they could easily free up a ton of cap space should they want to. Right now, they are just about $2M over the projected salary cap, but they could exercise the team options on the contracts of Goran Dragic and Andre Iguodala. 

Dragic has a team option of $19.4M for the 2021-22 season and Iguodaal has a team option of $15M for the 2021-22 season. Declining both of their options immediately frees up $34.4M on the Heat’s payroll, putting them just over $32M under the projected salary cap for next season. 

They could definitely work something out in terms of bringing in Kawhi via free agency, but a sign-and-trade definitely seems like the more logical route in order to sign Leonard to a long-term, $30M+ per year contract. 

The Heat have not shown a ton of interest in trading away Tyler Herro before, but they are expected to entertain the idea of moving on from the young guard should they be able to land a superstar like Kawhi Leonard. 

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In a potential sign-and-trade with the Clippers, the Heat could not only get rid of Goran Dragic and Andre Iguodala to free up that $34.4M in salary space, but they could also look to leverage Tyler Herro and maybe a bench guy like KZ Okpala, which would free up an extra $5.7M in salary space for the 2021-22 season. 

This would give Miami enough room to bring in Kawhi Leonard and thus creating a new version of the “Big 3” with Jimmy Butler, Bam Adebayo and now potentially Kawhi Leonard. It is definitely a long-shot as of right now, but the Heat do have the capability to free up the necessary cap room to bring in Leonard should they choose to do so.