The Heat added a former first-round pick to their roster a week before training camp began. On Monday it was announced that the Miami club reached a one-year agreement with small forward Nassir Little, a league source confirmed to the Miami Herald.
While the terms of the contract had not been fully finalized, the deal is expected to be partially guaranteed or non-guaranteed due to the Heat’s stance against the ultra-punitive second cap, which punishes teams that spend well above the luxury tax.
According to the source, the guarantees in Little’s new contract will be structured to keep the team under that second cap threshold when the deal is signed. The Heat were just $1.6 million away from crossing it before Little’s addition.
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Had the player signed a fully guaranteed one-year contract, his salary cap hit for next season would have been more than $2 million, enough to push the South Florida club beyond that second limit.
If Little remains on the roster for the entire season and Miami does not shed any salary in the coming months, he will end the season exceeding that cap.
By remaining under the second cap for now, the Heat can still rack up salaries in a trade or send cash in a player transaction.
At 24, Little is not eligible for a two-way contract because only players with three or fewer years of NBA service can sign them.
Nassir (6’6 and 220 pounds) grew up in Florida and attended high school in Orlando before playing one college season at North Carolina.
He was selected by the Portland Trail Blazers with the 25th pick in the first round of the 2019 Draft.
He spent his first four seasons in the league with the Trail Blazers before being traded to the Phoenix Suns last offseason as part of the three-team Damian Lillard trade.
He averaged 3.4 points, 1.7 rebounds, 0.5 assists, 0.2 steals, and 0.2 blocks in 10.2 minutes per game, shooting 46 percent from the field and 30 percent from 3-point range (21 of 70) in 45 appearances (two starts) for the Suns last season.
In his five-year NBA career, he has averaged 5.5 points, 2.9 rebounds, 0.7 assists, 0.3 steals, and 0.4 blocks in 15.8 minutes per game, with 45.2 percent field goal shooting and 33 percent three-point shooting.
His best season came in 2021-22 with the Trail Blazers when he averaged career-highs in points (9.8), rebounds (5.6), assists (1.3), steals (0.6) and blocks (0.9) in 42 games (23 starts).
Heat Roster
With Little’s addition, the Heat’s roster is down to 20 players, one short of the preseason maximum of 21.
The 15 players on standard contracts are Jimmy Butler, Bam Adebayo, Tyler Herro, Terry Rozier, Duncan Robinson, Haywood Highsmith, Kel’el Ware, Kevin Love, Jaime Jaquez Jr., Josh Richardson, Nikola Jovic, Alec Burks, Thomas Bryant, Pelle Larsson and Nassir Little.
The three two-way players are Josh Christopher, Keshad Johnson, and Dru Smith. Miami also has Isaiah Stevens and Zyon Pullin, who were both undrafted this year, signed to Exhibit 10 contracts.
The Exhibit 10 agreement is essentially an invitation to training camp and protects them from being signed by another team.
The Heat currently have enough cap space to add one more player on that type of contract. The franchise has until the day before the start of the regular season to decide whether to move these Exhibit 10 players to a standard contract, a two-way contract, or release them.
NBA teams can have up to 21 players under contract in the offseason and preseason. Lists must be reduced to a maximum total of 18 (15 on standard contracts and three on two-way contracts) before the start of the campaign.
Miami will host Media Day on Sept. 30 at the Kaseya Center before opening training camp at Baha Mar in the Bahamas on Oct. 1.
