According to numerous reports, via the Associated Press, Chris Bosh told the Miami Heat today that he is opting out of the last two years of his contract, and will join the other two members of “the big three,” LeBron James and Dwyane Wade, as free agents. So in about 30 or so hours, all three will officially become free agents.
Bosh’s agent, Henry Thomas, said he told Heat President Pat Riley about Bosh’s decision a couple hours ago.
Of course, this doesn’t mean that Bosh is leaving Miami, it just means that he’s not going to forward with his current deal with the club. Chris Bosh, and King James, and D Wade for that matter are doing this simply to explore the possibilities of re-structuring their contracts to see if they can stay together. Bosh will forgo $42.7 million over the next two seasons.
Now he’ll look for a way to spread his salary out over a longer period of time, therefore reducing the annual salary cap burden on the Miami Heat.
So how will this all work? How will Bosh, Wade and James work within the salary cap limitations and the inevitable luxury tax hits?
If the NBA salary cap rises to the estimated $63.2 million it is supposed to reach this summer, the Miami Heat will have $55,056,234 in cap space when the free agent negotiating period kicks off on Tuesday at 12:01 AM ET. We published a very in-depth piece on this situation earlier this morning.
Paul M. Banks owns The Sports Bank.net, an affiliate of Fox Sports and Yahoo! The Postgame. He’s been a guest on news talk shows all across the world. Banks has been featured in numerous media outlets including NFL.com, Forbes, Bleacher Report, Deadspin, ESPN, NBC, the History Channel and more. President Barack Obama follows him on Twitter (@paulmbanks)