Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh Opt Out, Open the Door For Heat to Reload

Miami Heat guard Dwyane Wade has officially opted out of his contract for next year, making him a free agent this summer along with LeBron James. Wade opting out means he will leave roughly 20 million dollars on the table next season and will in all likelihood mean that Wade will restructure a deal with the Miami Heat and take less money for the next two or three years in order to give Miami more flexibility to sign free agents this offseason.

Along with Wade, it is now also being reported that Chris Bosh will also opt out of his contract for next season with the Heat and will take less money to stay with them. Bosh has been the most vocal Heat player since the season ended about his intentions to stay in Miami.

With Wade, LeBron, Bosh, Haslem and Birdman all opting out of their deals, it frees up 55 million dollars in cap room for the Heat. Assuming Wade, Bosh and LeBron all take less and come back, this will allow Miami to pull off something similar to what they did when the brought in the big three. They now have the funds to go after Carmelo, Lowry, Marcin Gortat, or even Pau Gasol. The Heat front office will likely try to bring in more than one of those top free agents and form yet another super team this summer in South Beach.

Wade and Bosh would not have turned down that much money without a guarantee from LeBron that he will be returning along with them to Miami and an agreement that they will all three be taking pay cuts in order to retool their current team and make a run at a few star free agents looking for rings over money.

With all three opting out it wouldn’t surprise me at all to see Carmelo sit down and discuss the possibility of coming to Miami with the trio that plans to come back. A sign and trade with Toronto for Kyle Lowry is in the mix as well, but more likely Lowry would have to take a pay cut to about 10 million a year to play with the Heat. With the trend of stars taking less money to team up or keep great teams together (Bron, Bosh, Wade, Duncan, Parker, Howard) it would leave the door open for more than one star leaving a lot of money on the table in order to be a top contender to make the Finals year in and year out.

We will know soon who will be joining the Heat, but with the news of Bosh and Wade opting out, we can be sure that they will both return to Miami and every team other than the Heat can go ahead and move on the free agency plan B, because they will not be getting LeBron James. LeBron isn’t going anywhere and as much as it will eat at the hearts of Bill Simmons and all other Heat haters out there, not only will LeBron be returning to Miami, the door was just opened to bring him even more hall of fame teammates to join him in South Beach.