While the South Florida community sits on pins and needles in anticipation of the decision of its superstar shooting guard, Dwyane Wade today suggested that he will do what is best for his family amid his custody dispute over his children currently living with him in Chicago.

Wade’s contentious divorce from his estranged wife Siohvaughn was confirmed on June 25.

To say the divorce is finalized would be an accurate yet loosely applied statement. While the couple is officially not a couple anymore, critical issues about the division of marital assets and custody of their children two sons, Zaire, 8, and Zion, 3, are still in dispute.

Wade and his wife separated in September of 2007, when Siohvaughn, then living with husband Dwyane in a beautiful Pinecrest mansion, returned to Chicago shortly after the birth of their second child because she “needed help with raising the kids.”

Divorce proceedings commenced the next month. She has refused to return to Miami ever since.

From the outset of the divorce proceedings, Wade has been the bigger person. He hasn’t disrespected his ex-wife in the media, he hardly ever talks about the divorce, and he maintains that his children are what is most important to him at the moment.

Siohvaughn has played the part of the enraged lunatic, the type of ex that isn’t really concerned about the well-being of her children but rather focused on tearing down her ex-husband. Read more…

I am going to work under the assumption that Dwyane Wade is simply a master strategist and that he will eventually re-sign with the Miami Heat. Because if he doesn’t, it’s not worth writing, it’s not worth reading, and it’s certainly not worth watching the team this coming season.

I knew there was a potential Miami Heat storyline somewhere in the Richard Jefferson opt out decision. It just took me a few days to formulate.

The once low-key summer planned by the San Antonio Spurs that centered around the expected signing of Brazilian big man Tiago Splitter has now turned into a mad-dash scramble to find a new starter at the small forward position.

Jefferson’s departure certainly doesn’t sting the wallet of owner Peter Holt at all, but it does leave a gaping hole in a starting rotation that is desperately searching to get younger and more explosive.

Jefferson certainly wasn’t the player the Spurs had hoped for when they traded for him and the accompanying two-years and $29.4 million remaining on his contract, but he was a quality talent. And without the needed cap space to lure such a replacement, the impending end of the Tim Duncan era in San Antonio figures to wind to a quiet and punchless end.

The Spurs are in a difficult position. They are no longer the elite team in the Western Conference that has compiled four championships over the past eleven seasons, but they can’t exactly tear everything apart and start over yet either. After all, they’re still perennial 50-win basketball team.

With a young center (Splitter) and a young point guard (Hill), having re-upped its shooting guard (Ginobli) and selected a replacement in the first round of the draft (Anderson), and with Tim Duncan still in the mix at power forward – a young, immensely talented and inexpensive stretch forward with a floor spacing outside touch could be just what is needed to revitalize a struggling franchise. Read more…

Note: The proposed trade discussed below is now being classified by Hoopsworld as a rumor.

Why would Dwyane Wade consider the Chicago Bulls if they can’t add that coveted second max contract free agent? Neither Dwyane nor Chris would be willing to accept the $2,730,417 pay cut, would they?

Well, maybe they wouldn’t need to.

According to Bill Ingram of Hoopsword:

Now hearing reports that the Trail Blazers are in talks with the Bulls to acquire Luol Deng for a package including Joel Przybilla and Jerryd Bayless.

Sounds like pure and unfounded speculation which doesn’t seem to make much sense.

The two Blazers would certainly seem expendable. Portland has a glut at the center position, having extended Marcus Camby for two additional seasons and having Greg Oden in the final season of his rookie scale contract, and would certainly be amendable to a Przybilla trade. Bayless is a Mario-Chalmers-esque tweener better suited as a perennial backup to Brandon Roy at shooting guard than as a future starter at the point.

However, the suggested trade seems to make little sense for the Blazers. There would be no need for the team to acquire an expensive and injury-prone Luol Deng and the $51.3 million remaining on his contract, just to battle it out for a starting position with the more talented, more healthy, more youthful and more economical Nicolas Batum. If anything, the Blazers would covet a floor spacing outside shooter at the position, to complement the distance challenged Andre Miller and Brandon Roy – something which, despite an impressive 38.6% from beyond the arc last season, Luol Deng is not.

But the rumors are out there, so they’re worth at least analyzing. Read more…

If Dwyane Wade’s reported uncertainty has us all panicked, reports like this one have our hearts stopping outright.

I wouldn’t tell you not to worry about Wade. Nobody truly knows, possibly including Dwyane himself, what his decision will ultimately be.

I can, however, tell you unequivocally: Don’t worry about the possibility of the Chicago Bulls adding three max contract players (the ones set to make $16.6 million) while keeping Derrick Rose and Joakim Noah.

Why? Because the possibility stretches the limits of human sanity beyond all reasonable measures.

Daniel Leroux of RealGM writes:

First we have the 125% rule. This rule indicates that any team can take on 125% of the contract values they send out in a trade, plus $100,000 of buffer room. As such, take the maximum contract value above, divide it by 1.25 and subtract $100k from that total and you get $13,175,126. This is the minimum value a team at or over the cap could send in contracts for a max-level player while satisfying this rule. However, cap space can also be used to reduce this number if it is available.

He was absolutely correct… right up until that very last sentence. And that one sentence destroys the philosophy.

Let me explain. Read more…

For three years now, Pat Riley has sold South Florida on his all-or-nothing strategy to rebuild during the free agency summer of 2010. There was an idea floating around the Heat’s front office that they could pull off a monumental rebuilding coup if they could convince three max-level free agents – Dwyane Wade, plus two others – to take a little less than the maximum salary to sign on. For five years, maybe more, South Beach would be the NBA’s ultimate destination spot.

As the team entered the 2009/10 season, the Heat was little changed. Both of its second-round draft picks chose to play in Europe (in no small part because at the time the Heat did not want to pay luxury tax on their salaries), Jamario Moon was the only player of any importance who did not return (he signed with Cleveland as a free agent), and the biggest change the team had made for the upcoming year was deciding to move Beasley from power forward to small forward (and quickly back again).

The plan was widely criticized. Despite Riley’s master strategy, the math didn’t support the logic. With salary cap projections coming in as low as $50.4 million, the Heat would only be able to surround Dwyane Wade with one maximum contract free agent, with only $6.2 million to spare. Then Pat threw out a huge wrench in the strategy by offering a mid-level exception contract offer to Lamar Odom, a contract that would have paid Lamar $6.0 million and leave the Heat right on the cusp of max level money for even a second max contributor.

Wade was non-committal, having rejected an extension offer. He was screaming for help. There was much hand-wringing locally that not enough was done to surround him with championship-caliber players. After all, short-circuiting the rebuilding process would afford the Heat the opportunity to spend as much as $100 million or more on its team salary, a far cry from $50 million the 2010 off-season was expected to allow.

But Riley was adamant. Read more…

For as promising as the new season had started for the Miami Heat on day one, things have taken a turn for the decidedly worse on day two.

Dwyane Wade’s decision to grant the Bulls a second meeting has columnists suggesting it was more than just a courtesy visit and South Floridians panicking over the prospect of losing their MVP-caliber shooting guard.

Per Chad Ford:

Dwyane Wade is leaning toward committing to the Chicago Bulls, a source close to the situation told ESPN.com’s Chad Ford on Friday.

According to the source, Wade requested a second meeting with Bulls shortly after the 2006 NBA Finals MVP spent more than two hours getting wooed by the New York Knicks at a downtown Chicago hotel Friday morning. The source stressed that Wade needed the meeting to clarify issues around signing with the Bulls.

Up until today, it was deemed ludicrous that Wade would ever leave the Heat. People weren’t pitching him; he was pitching for them. Read more…

The NBA has truly become a point guard driven league.

The bulk of the current power teams in the league are employing point guards of the highest caliber. Brandon Jennings, Chauncey Billups, Deron Williams, Derrick Rose, Jameer Nelson, Jason Kidd, Mo Williams, Rajon Rondo, Russell Westbrook, Steve Nash and Tony Parker were all starring in the playoffs this season.

But for as much as 2009 was the year of the point guard, 2010 appears to be anything but.

Last summer, an astonishing 12 point guards were selected in the first round of the NBA Draft, including Rookie of the Year Tyreke Evans, the highly sought after Nick Collison, the playoff bound 55-point gamer Brandon Jennings, and perhaps the best of the class in Stephen Curry. The free agency period that followed it up wasn’t all that bad either, headlined by Andre Miller, Jason Kidd and Mike Bibby.

This time around, the story is decidedly different.

Much like in 2008, this year’s version of the NBA Draft kicked off with the selection of a highly touted point guard prospect in John Wall. But the only other point guard taken in the first round was Eric Bledsoe, if you can call him a point guard, at No. 18, a position the Heat traded out of.

Free agency would appear an equally bleak prospect for teams looking for a top-tier point guard. The best available names include: C.J. Watson (R), Derek Fisher, Earl Watson, Jason Williams, Jordan Farmar, Luke Ridnour, Raymond Felton and Steve Blake.

Felton is the best of the class, and that’s all you need to know about the paucity of available talent at the position. Remember, he’s the guy that struggled mightily in the first round of the playoffs when he was consistently outplayed by the Magic’s Jameer Nelson in Orlando’s four-game sweep of the Bobcats.

Among the list of options above, the only ones that have been reportedly linked to the Heat are Felton, Fisher and Blake (by me). Read more…

Not content to sit idly by and have their off-season plans destroyed by the departing Chris Bosh, general manager Bryan Colangelo and the Toronto Raptors opted instead to kick off free agency by agreeing to re-sign Amir Johnson to a five-year, $34 million contract.

The Johnson signing represents a commitment to rebuilding with the right long-term pieces for the start of the non-Bosh era. The 23-year old figures to be a key part of the frontcourt rotation for years to come and will have a chance to expand beyond his current role as a shot blocker and rebounder.

But to brush aside this ridiculous contract as a quality investment would be to assume that other teams were prepared to pay an average of $6.8 million per season over five years for a back-up big man who has had an exceedingly difficult time remaining on the floor due to his severe propensity for committing fouls. It is a perplexing expenditure for a franchise currently dealing with the consequences of another exorbitant contract that blew up in its face, and one dealing with several others (Calderon, 3 years and $29 million; Bargnani, 5 years and $50 million).

The consensus opinion after the first day of the most anticipated free agency period in league history is that rampant overspending is to be the norm, so the Raptors are certainly not alone in their dread. If Darko Milicic, who has averaged five points and four rebounds in 17 minutes per game for his career and was seriously contemplating moving back to Europe (always something of a buyer beware situation), can get a four-year, $20 million contract to play in sunny Minnesota, Johnson’s contract would seem right in line. The problem with that logic, however, is that such rampant league-wide spending is never an excuse for fiscal irresponsibility which can cripple an organization for the better part of a decade, particularly one that is already at the decided disadvantage of being located in another country and desperately trying to recruit citizens of the United States. Read more…

Some interesting developments have taken place today in Minnesota (how often can you say that?).

The Wolves have agreed to terms with two centers: free agent Darko Milicic and 2008 second-round draft pick Nikola Pekovic.

Milicic agreed to a rather eye-popping 4-year, $20 million contract. Just five months ago, the seven-footer wasn’t getting any floor time, and was seriously contemplating giving up on the NBA to return to Europe. Pekovic has a verbal agreement in place on a 3-year, $13 million contract. He has played for Greek powerhouse Panathinaikos for the past two seasons, staking his claim as one of the best centers not in the NBA. The deal, as reported, could be the most lucrative rookie contract for a second-round pick in NBA history, though it doesn’t seem particularly unreasonable.

In and of themselves, these additions are of no particular interest in South Florida. When combined, however, they are sure to raise an eyebrow or two.

If you recall, the Wolves are the team whose general manager, David Kahn, was reported to have a strong interest in Michael Beasley. In fact, Kahn confirmed on Sunday that he had previously contacted the Heat about trading for Beasley. The deal would have sent Beasley to the Wolves in exchange for Ryan Gomes.

The Wolves entered free agency with as much as $16,433,494 of available cap space at current salary cap projections. If we assume Milicic’s first year salary is $4,319,654 (based on the annual 10.5% raises he’d be eligible for) and Pekovic’s is $4,000,000 (based on the annual 8.0% raises he’d be eligible for), Minnesota will have reduced its total cap space to $8,113,840. However, the team also holds draft rights to Ricky Rubio, at a cost of $2,812,200, which it is not about to just throw away. Therefore, if the above assumptions are correct, after these two trades the Wolves will have a grand total of $5,301,640 in available and unencumbered cap space.

Guess whose salary that is just enough to accommodate?

Michael Beasley is set to make $4,962,240.

Is it possible that Minnesota is saving up just enough money to take on Beasley? Is it possible that a deal with Pat Riley and the Heat is already in place?

Of course, this is just wild speculation. But it is original. And the numbers sure seem oddly accommodating.

Per Jeff Goodman of Fox Sports:

Mike Miller has been offered a five-year, $30M contract by the Lakers.

Miller expects to be recruited by LeBron James and Dwyane Wade wherever they end up.

The Lakers have set a deadline of tonight to accept their offer.

Is Mike Miller off the table? If the deadline is true, by the time most of you read this we will already know.

I say the offer is rejected, based on pure emotion as much as anything else. This would be bad news for the Heat. South Floridians have grand visions of a Dwyane Wade, Lebron James and Chris Bosh trio calling Miami home for the next half decade. But it would be foolish not to prepare for an alternate reality. And Mike Miller stands as the second best available small forward in the 2010 free agent class (according to this fine evaluator of talent).