Heat free agency tracker: Miami lands Lowry and Tucker, bring back Robinson and Dedmon

With free-agent negotiations around the NBA allowed to begin Monday at 6 p.m., it’s going to be a busy day for the Miami Heat. Updates will be posted here throughout the day:

Free agency primer: What to know about the Heat’s salary cap situation, Lowry buzz and more

10:35 p.m.: With the Heat virtually capped out following the additions of guards Kyle Lowry and Duncan Robinson, Miami is going to work building out the rest of its roster.

Max Strus will be back. The wing, who was a contributor as an undrafted rookie last season, is rejoining the Heat on a two-year, $3.5 million deal, ESPN reported.

10:25 p.m.: Dewayne Dedmon made a good impression on the Heat in his short stint in Miami this year. Now the Heat is bringing him back for a full season.

Miami signed the center to a one-year deal Monday, The Athletic reported, to give the Heat another low-post option.

Miami has now added point guard Kyle Lowry and forward P.J. Tucker, and re-signed Dedmon and wing Duncan Robinson on the first day of free agency, giving the Heat a roster of Lowry, Tucker, Dedmon, Robinson, Jimmy Butler, Bam Adebayo, Tyler Herro and KZ Okpala.

9:05 p.m.: P.J. Tucker is finally heading to the Heat.

After rumors linked the forward to Miami throughout last season, Tucker landed with the Milwaukee Bucks and won a championship. Now he’ll bring his defensive tenacity to South Florida to give the Heat another small-ball power forward option.

Tucker’s deal is for two years and $15 million, The Athletic reported.

8 p.m.: Wing Trevor Ariza is leaving the Heat for the Los Angeles Lakers, but Miami isn’t done trying to add shooting, a source told the Miami Herald.

Three-point shooting was one of the Heat’s greatest weaknesses last season, especially with star forwards Jimmy Butler and Bam Adebayo mostly being non-shooters. The addition of point guard Kyle Lowry helps, but Miami wants to create as much space as possible for Butler and Adebayo.

Markieff Morris could be an option. The Heat has offered him a deal, but the post player has not made up his mind. He would give Miami the floor-spacing power forward it missed after trading away post player Kelly Olynyk last year.

7 p.m.: Duncan Robinson is getting paid.

The wing, who went from undrafted to starter for an NBA Finals team, is returning to the Heat on a five-year, $70 million deal.

6:10 p.m.: Jimmy Butler will be eligible to sign a max extension with the Heat on Friday and the two parties are expected to agree to a deal as soon as the league year begins, The Athletic reported.

The star forward’s extension will keep him in Miami for an extra four years and pay him upward of $184 million.

6:05 p.m.: Kyle Lowry, as has been expected for days and even weeks now, is heading to the Heat and is eyeing a three-year deal with Miami, Yahoo Sports reported.

The Heat has been setting up a sign-and-trade deal for the point in recent weeks and is working to finalize a deal with the Toronto Raptors. The move, once finalized, will give Miami a clear win-now core with Lowry joining star forwards Jimmy Butler and Bam Adebayo.

The Heat is also on the verge of keeping one of its most important homegrown talents in Miami. Wing Duncan Robinson is expected to reach an agreement with the Heat on Monday, veteran NBA reporter Marc Stein reported.

4:30 p.m.: If the Heat adds guard Kyle Lowry via sign-and-trade as expected, there will still be an obvious hole to fill at power forward. The expectation is Miami will use its $9.5 million mid-level exception to address that need.

Finding a way to land free agent DeMar DeRozan could an answer. Despite standing at just 6-6 and 220 pounds, DeRozan did play as a power forward at times last season with the San Antonio Spurs.

Some other potential four options in free agency: Jeff Green, Otto Porter Jr., Rudy Gay, Bobby Portis, Nicolas Batum, Doug McDermott, Kelly Oubre, Paul Millsap, JaMychal Green and Lauri Markkanen.

2:30 p.m.: According to a league source, the Heat has told free agent center Dewayne Dedmon that it wants him back. But Dedmon is expected to generate interest around the league as an unrestricted free agent after impressing late last season with Miami.

The Heat does not hold Dedmon’s Bird rights, so Miami only has exception money or a minimum contract to offer him as an over-the-cap team. Would Dedmon agree to return to the Heat for the bi-annual exception worth $3.7 million?

1:30 p.m.: According to Marc Stein, the Heat is also “exploring pathways to try to acquire San Antonio free agent DeMar DeRozan via sign-and-trade” and “attempting to make all of these moves without surrendering Tyler Herro via trade.”

The Heat remains reluctant to include Herro in these deals, a league source confirmed to the Miami Herald.

As for DeRozan, it would be challenging but not impossible to acquire him via sign-and-trade after declining Andre Iguodala’s $15 million team option. Iguodala’s salary would have helped facilitate such a deal.

With currently only three players under contract with a salary greater than $4 million for next season — Bam Adebayo, Jimmy Butler and Goran Dragic — the Heat would likely have to include Iguodala, Nunn or some of its other free agents in a double sign-and-trade for the DeRozan to get that type of deal done without including Herro. But that would take some cooperation from the teams and free agents involved.

It’s also important to remember that including Nunn in a sign-and-trade will be difficult because of a rule called base-year compensation (BYC) that creates salary matching issues. Since Nunn is expected to receive a raise greater than 20 percent, his outgoing salary for trade purposes is either his previous salary or 50 percent of his new salary, whichever is greater, in a sign-and-trade transaction.

For example, if Nunn signs a deal with a starting salary of $12 million, he would only count as a $6 million player for salary-matching purposes in a sign-and-trade agreement.

Of course, DeRozan could simplify things and just take take the non-taxpayer mid-level exception for $9.5 million to join the Heat. But there’s some who believe DeRozan would sign for more money elsewhere in that scenario.

11:30 a.m.: According to a report from Sports Illustrated’s Chris Mannix, there’s some uncertainty surrounding Victor Oladipo’s free agency after he underwent surgery to repair the quadriceps tendon in his right knee on May 13 after rupturing that same tendon in his right knee in January 2019. Oladipo, who will be an unrestricted free agent, was traded to the Heat in March but played in just four games with Miami before feeling discomfort in the knee.

“Is there a market for Victor Oladipo?” Mannix wrote. “Surgery to repair a torn quad in May will keep Oladipo out for the start of the season, and teams have become increasingly wary about Oladipo’s long term health. Several execs say it’s possible Oladipo, 29, could go unsigned for the next few months, until he can show he is ready to play.”

There’s at least some here’s hope that Oladipo could be cleared to return to full contact basketball as early as November and be able to play next season by February.

The Heat holds Oladipo’s Bird rights, so it can exceed the salary cap to re-sign him up to his maximum salary.

Mannix added that “there will be mutual interest in a reunion between [Andre] Iguodala and Golden State.” Iguodala is an unrestricted free agent after the Heat declined the $15 million team option in his contract on Sunday.

11 a.m.: The Athletic’s John Hollinger reported Monday morning that the expectation around the league is that Duncan Robinson’s price tag will land in the $18 million a year range.

“The Heat will likely match offers on the restricted free agent at this price point,” Hollinger wrote.

Hollinger, a former Memphis Grizzlies executive, also noted that “the other move that has been hotly rumored of late is DeMar DeRozan going to Miami for their full MLE, which they could likely just squeeze under the luxury tax apron along with Lowry and Robinson” and that “keeping Kendrick Nunn, on the other hand, seems hugely unlikely.”

The Heat has the non-taxpayer mid-level exception for $9.5 million that it could offer DeRozan. A league source told the Miami Herald that DeRozan would have interest in joining the Heat for the right salary. Jimmy Butler, Kyle Lowry and DeRozan are close friends.

10:30 a.m.: The Heat will enter free agency as the frontrunner to land veteran guard Kyle Lowry in free agency, according to league sources.

Teams that had planned to pursue Lowry, who turns 36 in March, have shifted their focus elsewhere, according to reports.

Expected to operate as an over-the-cap team, the Heat would need to acquire Lowry through a sign-and-trade deal. Getting this type of transaction done would take the cooperation of the Toronto Raptors, with Miami and Lowry still having to agree to terms on a new contract.

Lowry is seeking a deal this offseason that includes a starting salary between $25 million and $30 million with at least two guaranteed years, according to league sources.

The expectation is that Goran Dragic’s $19.4 million salary would likely be included in any potential sign-and-trade transaction for Lowry to help make the trade math work. But at least one young player or even draft picks, which the Heat doesn’t have many of, would probably need to be included in the package as a sweetener to facilitate the deal.

In most cases, a Heat package of Dragic ($19.4 million) and Precious Achiuwa ($2.7 million) would work within NBA salary cap rules in a trade for Lowry.

Two things to remember about a sign-and-trade deal ...

▪ Players acquired via sign-and-trade must be signed to contracts for at least three seasons. The first year of the contract must be fully guaranteed, but the remaining seasons can be non-guaranteed.

▪ There’s a $143 million hard cap that’s triggered when acquiring a player through a sign-and-trade.

10 a.m.: After exercising the $19.4 million team option in guard Goran Dragic’s contract and declining the $15 million team option in forward Andre Iguodala’s contract for next season on Sunday, the Heat is on track to enter free agency with six players who have guaranteed salaries for next season: Jimmy Butler, Bam Adebayo, Dragic, Tyler Herro, Precious Achiuwa and KZ Okpala.

That means there are 11 players from Miami’s season-ending roster who will become free agents this summer: Trevor Ariza, Nemanja Bjelica, Dewayne Dedmon, Udonis Haslem, Iguodala, Kendrick Nunn (restricted), Victor Oladipo, Duncan Robinson (restricted), Max Strus (restricted) and Gabe Vincent (restricted). The Heat also declined the $1.5 million team option in the contract of developmental center Omer Yurtseven on Sunday to make him a free agent, but Yurtseven will stick with the Heat for summer league.

For the 2021-22 season, the projected salary cap is about $112.4 million and projected luxury-tax threshold is about $136.6 million. While negotiations can begin Monday evening, free agents can’t formally sign their new contracts until Friday at 12:01 p.m.