LeBron James Reportedly Uninterested In Taking Less Money From Heat Without Promise Of Roster Help
The Spurs exposed the Heat’s biggest flaw—lack of depth—in the Finals. At times it seemed the Big Three were Miami’s only productive players, and often it felt LeBron James was the team’s only difference maker. There’s plenty of talk about LeBron potentially taking less money and staying in Miami, but he won’t do it just to save the franchise a few bucks. He wants more talent on the team. From the NY Daily News:
As team insiders have maintained for months, James isn’t interested in reducing his salary from $20.6 next season and $22.1 million in 2015-16 just so that team owner Micky Arison can avoid paying luxury taxes. As they say, been there, done that and all it got James was second place.
Bosh, who makes identical money to James, and Wade, who makes slightly less, at around $41.5 million for the next two seasons, also don’t want to rework their deals solely to give Arison another tax break. They want the money put to good use, meaning adding talent so that Miami can return to the Finals for a fifth straight season. No team has done that since the Red Auerbach-led Celtics of the 1960s.
The Big Three would possibly do what Duncan has done for years so that Pat Riley has the means to bring in a young, athletic wing, along with other new parts. There will be talk about taking pay cuts to fit Carmelo Anthony in, but that is seen as far-fetched.
