The Miami Heat have been active in free agency after losing LeBron James and some options still left on the free agent market include Jordan Crawford, Chris Douglas-Roberts, Chris Singleton, Ray Allen, Emeka Okafor and Michael Beasley and this comes after the team signed Shannon Brown and Shawne Williams to contracts.
According to Pro Basketball Talk, the deal for Brown is for one year and worth $1.3 million and he is competing to be an end of the bench player with Miami. The Heat have added a number of free agents along with the big signing of Luol Deng, including Josh McRoberts, Danny Granger and Williams, while James Ennis and Tyler Johnson are on the roster, but they are on not-fully guaranteed contracts.
The Golden State Warriors look like they are close to signing Leandro Barbosa and that comes after Miami had been interested in signing the Brazilian player. According to Pro Basketball Talk, the team is signing Shannon Brown over Barbosa and the team also has other targets like Chris Douglas-Roberts, Ray Allen and also possibly Chris Singleton. The team has a deep roster and they have continued to add role players to the mix.
Barbosa was getting interest from the Heat, but it likely would have been a non-guaranteed deal and now he is signing with Golden State. The reports says that the deal is for one year and the veterans minimum and he now is joining a team that could make a run in the playoffs. The Warriors were deep into Kevin Love trade talks before dropping out and that was mainly because they did not want to add Klay Thompson to their package.
Miami has been a very active team in free agency this offseason and they have added Shawne Williams, Shannon Brown as well as Luol Deng, Josh McRoberts and Danny Granger. The team also kept its own free agents in Udonis Haslem, Mario Chalmers and Chris Andersen and those names give the team plenty of depth and help for Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh. Losing LeBron James is something that can't be replaced, but adding someone like Deng can help that, as he is a strong player on both ends of the floor.
Miami has high expectations despite losing LeBron and while they may not be championship favorites over the Cavaliers, there's no reason to think that Miami can't compete in the east. The team should still be one of the best in the conference and this comes as teams like the Bulls, Cavs, Wizards and Raptors also will be good. The Pacers remain in the mix despite losing Paul George and even the Knicks could be improved over last season.
Miami has won the east the past four seasons and if there is a matchup of the Heat and Cavs, it should be a very interesting one with LeBron in the center of it all. Cleveland pulled off the Kevin Love trade and now they look set there and they have also added some players in free agency, including Shawn Marion and James Jones, while they also are closing in on Ray Allen.