Heat opts not to give qualifying offer to Omer Yurtseven. What it means for team and Yurtseven

Center Omer Yurtseven will become an unrestricted free agent.

The Heat opted not to extend a $2.3 million qualifying offer to Yurtseven ahead of Thursday’s deadline.

By extending a qualifying offer, the Heat would have made Yurtseven a restricted free agent and retained the right to match outside offers to re-sign him.

But, instead, the Heat’s decision to forgo the qualifying offer means that Yurtseven will be an unrestricted free agent this summer. He’ll be free to outright sign with any other team and the Heat does not hold the power to match outside offers.

Free agent negotiations across the NBA can begin on Friday at 6 p.m, with free-agent signings permitted to start on July 6 at noon.

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The Heat’s own impending free agents are Gabe Vincent, Max Strus, Kevin Love, Cody Zeller, Jamal Cain, Orlando Robinson and Yurtseven. All, except for Cain and Robinson, will be unrestricted free agents.

Yurtseven, who turned 25 on June 19, missed most of this past season after undergoing ankle surgery in November and never was able to find a consistent role when he returned in March. He logged just 16 minutes over eight games during this year’s playoffs, and all of that playing time came late in double-digit wins or losses.

During the regular season, Yurtseven averaged 4.4 points and 2.6 rebounds per game in limited playing time over nine appearances. He did not make a start this past season.

Zeller and Haywood Highsmith were among the frontcourt options who played ahead of Yurtseven in the Heat’s bench rotation during the playoffs.

This was not the role Yurtseven expected to have in his second NBA season after spending extended stretches during training camp playing alongside starting center Bam Adebayo, as the Heat experimented with a two-big frontcourt. Yurtseven even started alongside Adebayo in the Heat’s preseason opener before he missed the rest of the preseason and the first four months of the regular season because of his ankle injury.

While an injury derailed Yurtseven’s second NBA season, he was able to flash his potential as a rookie.

With Adebayo missing time because of a thumb injury during the 2021-22 season, Yurtseven grabbed at least 12 rebounds in 11 straight games for the longest such streak in Heat history.

Despite not extending a qualifying offer to Yurtseven, the Heat can still re-sign him as an unrestricted free agent. The Heat has Yurtseven’s full Bird rights, so it can exceed the salary cap to re-sign him up to his maximum salary.

Or the Heat could just offer Yurtseven a minimum contract to bring him back. A minimum contract for Yurtseven would carry a cap hit of about $2 million, which is about $300,000 less than the qualifying offer the Heat opted to bypass.

The difference isn’t much at the surface, but it’s an important one when considering the Heat’s salary-cap crunch for this upcoming season. But at this point, the Heat has not expressed interest in bringing back Yurtseven.

“We’re grateful we got a chance to be there,” Yurtseven’s agent Keith Glass said to the Miami Herald after learning the Heat would not give his client a qualifying offer on Thursday. “Disappointed with the [ankle] injury, it was kind of a wasted year for him. We’ll try to find a place that values him and helps him reach his potential.”

The Heat’s current salary-cap breakdown for next season includes Jimmy Butler ($45.2 million), Bam Adebayo ($32.6 million), Kyle Lowry ($29.7 million), Tyler Herro ($27 million), Duncan Robinson ($18.2 million), Victor Oladipo ($9.5 million), Caleb Martin ($6.8 million), Jaime Jaquez Jr. ($3.5 million), Nikola Jovic ($2.4 million) and Highsmith ($1.9 million non-guaranteed salary).

The Heat has about $179.3 million committed to salaries for those 10 players, including the unlikely incentives in Herro’s contract that raise his cap hit to $29.5 million when calculating the team’s payroll against the first and second tax apron. Highsmith’s full $1.9 million salary for next season becomes guaranteed if the Heat does not waive him before July 15.

With the 2023-24 salary cap projected to be set at $136 million, the projected luxury tax at $165 million, the projected first tax apron at $172 million and the projected second tax apron at $182.5 million, the Heat is already a luxury tax team and very close to crossing the newly-instituted and ultra-punitive second apron with roster spots still to fill for next season.

If the Heat crosses the second apron, as expected, it won’t be permitted to use the $5 million taxpayer midlevel exception that it would otherwise have at its disposal in previous years before the new salary-cap rules were established.

Since the Heat has no cap space and likely won’t have a midlevel exception because it’s expected to be above the second apron, the only realistic way for Miami to add outside talent this offseason is through a trade and/or with minimum contracts unless a move is made to change the salary-cap math.

Another option for the Heat this offseason is to leverage the Bird rights it holds for some of its own free agents to bring back most of last season’s roster that finished just three wins short of an NBA championship. But that would path would come with an expensive luxury tax bill.

With Zeller, Yurtseven and Robinson set to be free agents, the Heat does not currently have a backup center under contract for next season. Miami could re-sign one or two of Zeller, Yurtseven or Robinson to fill that need or could turn to outside free-agent centers like Thomas Bryant, Bismack Biyombo, Gorgui Dieng, Meyers Leonard, Mo Bamba and others who the Heat could possibly add on a minimum contract.

The Heat’s bookkeeping decisions are now done ahead of free agency after extending two-way contract qualifying offers to Cain and Robinson and not extending a qualifying offer to Yurtseven before Thursday’s deadline. Also this week, Oladipo opted into a salary of $9.5 million for next season with the Heat.