Dwayne Wade deserves to be a max player. He's a champion. Inapi lang sya ni Pat Riley. This would leave a bad impression on Pat Riley and the Miami Heat organization.
Glad Wade grab the Bulls. Lumakas tuloy and Bulls.
IMO its unfair to call out Pat Riley on this.
It was clear to Wade & anyone following the NBA, that Durant & Whiteside were the priority FA targets for the HEAT ....... as priority guys, they're expected to get max. Wade was only the 3rd priority this offseason.
Like the ESPN crew discussed earlier, no one forced Wade to sign-up for reduced contracts the past few years - his past contracts were mutual agreements since it allowed the team to have cap flexibility and sign-up good players to have a contending team e.g. Lebron, Bosh, Goran, etc.
Players like Dirk, Duncan, etc have signed-up for lesser contracts just so their mother teams can have cap flexibility and build a strong team.
Wade took $20M last year ...... it was up to him if another $20M/year contract was acceptable. Probably, the rise in the cap & the sight of inferior players signing massive contracts inspired him to seek bigger.
Like OKC (they let Harden go, just for a difference of $5M/year), the HEAT (and Pat Riley) is a proud organization ...... their owners have clear mandates to stick to acceptable salary cap limits.
Both OKC & MIAMI will rebuild again. Management of both are just too good.