Report: Dwyane Wade 'Open to Leaving' Miami Heat
In what would be a shocking move, could Dwyane Wade and the Miami Heat part ways after a 12-year relationship featuring three NBA championships?
It's a possibility, according to the Miami Herald, because "there's a significant difference in what both parties believe he should be paid for the next three seasons."
Though Wade prefers to stay with the Heat, where he has spent his entire 12-year career, he is now open to leaving if the Heat does not raise its offer, according to two sources with direct knowledge.
Wade has the option to forgo the $16.1 million he's owed next season and opt out this summer.
Wade said last summer that he was curious to see what he could command in the summer of 2016, when the cap is expected to skyrocket from $67 million to $89 million. That led to the belief that Wade would opt-in this summer.
But according to associates, there's sentiment in the Wade camp for Wade to opt out this summer, with the hope that the Heat would give him a lucrative three-year deal that would extend past his 36th birthday.
The AP seconded the Herald's report.
With Goran Dragic expected to opt out while looking for a new, more lucrative contract and Hassan Whiteside set to become a free agent in the summer of 2016, Pat Riley and the Heat could be forced to make a difficult decision this summer -- loyalty or the future. Fortunately the salary cap is expected to increase substantially after next season (by an estimated $22 million), creating a larger cake to split up among the Heat's core, but if Wade is commanding top-level Kobe-esque dollars to make up for the pay cuts he's taken over the last five years, Miami could be in trouble.
Could some of this be a bluff on Wade's part with his agent trying to create some leverage?
The 33-year-old Wade is coming off a successful season statistically after averaging 21.5 points and 4.8 assists on 47-percent shooting. But he did miss 20 games due to injury in Year 1 of the post-LeBron era. With Wade banged up, Chris Bosh shelved in February, and a slew of other injuries and misfortune, the Heat failed to make the postseason for the first time since 2007-08 in a weakened Eastern Conference.
The assumption always was Wade would be a Heat lifer and finish his majestic NBA career in the same place where it began.
But if this is indeed real and Wade is willing to leave his home of the last 12 years for more money elsewhere, the question Riley has to answer is how much his aging former franchise cornerstone is worth at this stage of his career.
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