Free agency tracker: Will Donovan Mitchell ask out of Utah? Heat ready to pounce

Free agent negotiations around the NBA were allowed to begin Thursday at 6 p.m., but Kevin Durant’s trade request was the league’s biggest story on the first day of free agency. What will happen on Friday? Updates will be posted here throughout Day 2:

6:30 p.m.: Andy Larsen, who covers the Utah Jazz for The Salt Lake Tribune, said a Donovan Mitchell trade shouldn’t be ruled out.

“I’m hearing some pushback regarding the idea that the Jazz are definitely keeping Donovan Mitchell moving forward. Sense is that the Jazz are keeping their options open here: they could retool around Mitchell, or trade him for a massive haul to jumpstart a rebuild,” Larsen tweeted.

Larden added in a second tweet: “In particular, watch Miami. Obviously, Kevin Durant is their No. 1 target, but if that doesn’t work out, they have been and will continue to be aggressive re: Mitchell.”

The Heat looks to be positioning itself to be in the game for any star who becomes available on the trade market as it works to upgrade the roster.

4 p.m.: The Utah Jazz’s decision to trade center Rudy Gobert to Minnesota for rookie Walker Kessler, four veterans and four first-round picks creates a natural follow-up question: Will Donovan Mitchell ask for a trade?

If he does, expect the Heat to pursue him. Mitchell reportedly holds the Heat in high regard.

Utah’s plan, according to ESPN, is to retool its roster around Mitchell. The question becomes whether Mitchell will want to be a part of that retooling.

A hypothetical trade package of Mitchell for Duncan Robinson, Omer Yurtseven, Tyler Herro and a first-round pick would satisfy salary cap rules.

To this point, there’s no indication that Mitchell has asked for a trade. But if he does, expect the Heat to try to pounce, unless it believes it still has a good chance to land Kevin Durant.

Mitchell is a three-time All Star. He averaged 25.9 points last season, to go with 4.2 rebounds and 5.3 assists, while shooting 44.8 percent from the field and 35.5 percent on threes.

He’s under contract the next three seasons at $32.3 million, $32.6 million and $34.8 million, with a $37.1 million player option for 2025-26.

1:55 p.m.: As the Heat works to build its roster for next season, another team in the Eastern Conference looks to have gotten better.

The Boston Celtics, which eliminated the Heat in the Eastern Conference finals before losing to the Golden State Warriors in the NBA Finals, reportedly made a trade with the Indiana Pacers to acquire guard Malcolm Brogdon. The addition of Brogdon gives the Celtics another versatile guard who can play on and off the ball on offense and also serve as a quality defender.

The Celtics added Brogdon without breaking up their core. Boston traded Daniel Theis, Aaron Nesmith, Nik Stauskas, Malik Fitts, Juwan Morgan and a 2023 first-round pick to land the 29-year-old, according to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski.

The Atlanta Hawks and Philadelphia 76ers, which were both eliminated by the Heat in last season’s playoffs, have also made upgrades to their roster in recent days.

The Hawks traded for rising star Dejounte Murray and the 76ers were able to steal veteran forward P.J. Tucker away from the Heat in free agency.

11:30 a.m.: Otto Porter Jr. is signing a two-year deal with Toronto, further diminishing the Heat’s available options for a starting power forward if they cannot trade for Kevin Durant.

Porter, who left the champion Golden State Warriors, joins Chris Boucher and Thaddeus Young as power forwards who agreed to terms in the past 18 hours with the Raptors, who already have Pascal Siakam.

There are only a handful of starting free agent power forwards left in free agency, including TJ Warren (who has played mostly small forward and hasn’t played at all since December 2020 because of a foot injury), Carmelo Anthony (well past his prime and not a fit here because of his defense), Blake Griffin (a shell of his All Star self), and soon, Danilo Gallinari, who will get a Spurs buyout.

But Gallinari intends to join the Celtics, per ESPN.

Markieff Morris remains an unrestricted free agent but was out of the Heat’s playoff rotation. Caleb Martin, who can play some power forward, remains a restricted free agent.

10:10 a.m.: How did Day 1 of free agency go for the Heat?

During the first few minutes of free agency, the Heat lost veteran forward P.J. Tucker to the Philadelphia 76ers, as expected. The Athletic’s Shams Charania reported the value of Tucker’s new fully guaranteed contract with the 76ers will be $33 million over three years.

But the Heat also agreed to terms to bring back guard Victor Oladipo and center Dewayne Dedmon early in free agency. Charania reported that Oladipo will sign a one-year, $11 million deal and a league source told the Miami Herald that Dedmon will sign a two-year, $9 million contract to return to the Heat.

The Heat also learned Thursday that it has a chance to acquire one of the NBA’s best players in Durant, who requested a trade from the Nets just a few hours before free agency opened. Making things even more real for Miami, ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski reported that Durant has the Phoenix Suns and Heat as two of his preferred trade destinations.

But Wojnarowski also pointed out that the Nets “plan to move Durant where they can get the best possible deal.” Numerous teams are showing significant interest in Durant with four seasons left on his contract, as Wojnarowski said on ESPN more than half of the league had already checked in with the Nets regarding Durant within the first hour that his trade demand became public.

What could the Heat offer the Nets for Durant? Take a look here.

With Tucker committing to the 76ers and Dedmon and Oladipo returning, only three players from the Heat’s season-ending roster remain available in free agency: Udonis Haslem and Markieff Morris are unrestricted free agents, and Caleb Martin is a restricted free agent.

To show the organization’s appreciation for Haslem, the Heat sent a group of employees to Orlando where he was vacationing to shower him with love shortly after negotiations were allowed to begin Thursday evening. The Heat is hoping Haslem, who turned 42 in June, decides to continue his playing career and returns for a 20th NBA season on another veteran minimum contract.

The Heat’s current salary-cap breakdown for next season includes 12 players: Jimmy Butler ($37.7 million), Bam Adebayo ($30.4 million), Kyle Lowry ($28.3 million), Duncan Robinson ($16.9 million), Oladipo ($11 million), Tyler Herro ($5.7 million), Dedmon (projected $4.3 million), Nikola Jovic (projected $2.2 million), Max Strus ($1.8 million), Gabe Vincent ($1.8 million), Omer Yurtseven ($1.8 million) and Haywood Highsmith (non-guaranteed $1.8 million).

Not including cap holds, the Heat has about $143.7 million committed to salaries for next season with the NBA setting the 2022-23 salary cap at $123.7 million, luxury-tax threshold at $150.3 million and potential hard-cap apron at $157 million.

With no cap space and approaching the luxury tax, the Heat is operating as an over-the-cap team.

Using either the $10.5 million non-taxpayer midlevel exception, $4.1 million biannual exception or acquiring a player through a sign-and-trade would hard cap the Heat at about $157 million. But a league source told the Miami Herald that the Heat is looking to avoid the hard cap this year because it would limit the team’s flexibility in the trade market during the NBA’s 2022-23 calendar, and that flexibility gives Miami more room to be creative in its pursuit of Durant.

Also, a few things worth noting:

▪ Friday marks the first day that this year’s first-round picks, like Jovic, can sign rookie-scale contracts with their respective teams. Jovic is slotted to make about $2.2 million this upcoming season as the 27th overall pick and will be under team control for five seasons.

▪ With the 2022-23 NBA calendar beginning Friday, Herro became eligible to sign an extension to his rookie-scale contract with the Heat. The Heat and Herro have a mid-October deadline (the final day before the start of the regular season) to reach an agreement on an extension. If an extension isn’t agreed to, Herro will become a restricted free agent in the summer of 2023.

▪ Guards Javonte Smart and Mychal Mulder, who are both participating in summer league, currently hold the Heat’s two two-way contracts. But two-way deals don’t count against the salary cap.

▪ The free-agent contracts agreed to by Dedmon and Oladipo to return to the Heat means they can’t be traded until Dec. 15.

NBA teams are allowed to carry up to 20 players under contract in the offseason and preseason, a total that does not include those on summer league contracts. Rosters must be cut to a maximum total of 17 players (15 on standard contracts and two on two-way contracts) by the start of the regular season.

While negotiations were allowed to begin Thursday evening, free agents can’t formally sign their new contracts until Wednesday at 12:01 p.m.

On to Day 2 ...