The Miami Heat announced Tuesday that Mike Miller
has been waived using the amnesty provision in the 2011 collective
bargaining agreement. The decision ends an injury plagued but undeniably
successful return to the Sunshine State for the former Florida Gator
and Orlando Magic star. It was a three-year stint in which he played a reduced role on teams led by LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh, but proved pivotal in a pair of NBA title runs.
Ethan J. Skolnick of the Palm Beach Post first reported the move would come Tuesday afternoon, in advance of the NBA's 11:59 p.m. ET July 16 deadline for teams to use the amnesty provision to shed one contract from their balance sheets. And it did, despite team president Pat Riley's public statement three days earlier that the Heat were not planning to use the amnesty. Apparently a subsequent consultation with team owner Micky Arison clearly changed matters.
"This was a very difficult decision for me personally, the Arison family, [coach] Erik [Spoelstra] and the entire Miami Heat organization," Riley said in a team statement.
"Mike was one of the best we have ever had here, and will be sorely
missed. We wish Mike, his wife Jennifer and their family nothing but the
best."
After the announcement, Miller shared gratitude for his time in South Florida:
That Miami zapped Miller's
contract isn't much of a shock — the 33-year-old shooter has been
discussed as a potential amnesty candidate since before the new CBA was
even finalized, with stories about his house going on the market serving as grist for the rumor mill. As was the case when the Los Angeles Lakers recently used the amnesty to
jettison Metta World Peace, the key motivation behind the Heat waiving
Miller is shrinking the luxury-tax tab the team will owe the NBA next summer.
Arison shelled out more than $13.3 million in luxury tax
last week, which is a killer chunk of change on top of the hefty
paychecks for the 2012-13 NBA champions. While Riley had said multiple
times he hoped to bring the Heat's full roster back, that he'd hate to break up a championship squad, and that Miami wasn't planning to use the amnesty, he's not the one signing the checks. (Tuesday's decision seems to lend a bit of context to Riley's recent statement that he thought the Heat should get a tax break.)
Entering Tuesday, Miami had just under $87.1 million in guaranteed salary on its 2013-14 books. With a top-heavy roster built around the big-money contracts of the Big Three, the amnesty provision
offers a powerful opportunity to drastically reduce a team's salary
commitments — and the steep additional penalties they carry — with one
swing of the axe.
Six players on the Heat roster were eligible for the one-time amnesty
— James, Bosh, Wade, Miller, Joel Anthony and Udonis Haslem. The first
three, obviously, weren't going anywhere. Haslem made 59 starts at power
forward last season and makes less money than Miller. Anthony — a key
reserve center on Miami's 2011 Finals and 2012 championship team —
represented a viable option, considering he barely played last season,
but expunging the $7.6 million he's owed over the next two seasons
wouldn't cut down the tax bill nearly as much as Miller's $12.8 million,
which put the 2000-01 Rookie of the Year on the chopping block.
League rules used to require teams pay $1 in tax for every dollar spent over the luxury tax line. Under the new terms of the 2011 CBA,
however, the tax rates increase incrementally depending on how far over
the line teams go — $1.50 in tax for every dollar past the line until
you reach $5 million over, then $1.75 for every dollar between $5
million and $10 million over, $2.50 in tax for every dollar between $10
million and $15 million, and $3.25 in tax for every dollar between $15
million and $20 million past the line. The '13-'14 luxury tax line has
been set at $71.7 million, which put the Heat (as of Tuesday morning) in that last, super-high tax bracket.Shedding the $6.2 million owed Miller for 2013-14 drops them out of that bracket and will save Miami somewhere between $15 million and $17 million in tax bills this season, with estimated savings perhaps rising as high as $40 million over the next two seasons. But the Heat must still pay the $12.8 million owed to Miller over the final two years of his contract, and losing Miller still leaves Miami some $9 million over the tax line with a pair of roster slots yet to be filled.
Considering that still keeps Miami in line to pay the luxury tax in three straight years with the massive repeater tax coming in 2014-15, saving money where and when you can makes a lot of sense, and such a significant reduction in '13-'14 tax payments is sure to let Arison rest a bit easier. Amnestying Miller is a move that provides a bit of financial breathing room without facing down the doom-and-gloom, blow-it-up scenario that's floated around discussion of the Heat for at least eight months.
It also doesn't figure to make too big a difference for Miami on the court, where, as NBA.com's John Schuhmann notes,
the team still returns nearly 95 percent of its minutes from its second
straight championship campaign. Miller was the 10th man on Miami's
bench after the team brought in Chris Andersen midseason, and figured to
once again slot in behind James, Wade, Mario Chalmers,
Ray Allen, Shane Battier and Norris Cole in Miami's wing rotation next
season. While Riley, coach Erik Spoelstra and Miller's teammates loved
him, he is a replaceable quantity. And if you don't believe me, just ask
the man himself:
