Apologies for saying reportedly rather than rumor. The bottom line is all the buzz is that it’s going down, so who has some ideas on how they could actually pull it off?
Miami can match salary easy enough.
Dragic + KO for CP3 + future #1
That won’t match salary. Heat are subject to the hard cap this season and are currently only $400k from it. So to get Paul they have to send out virtually his salary.
Where are you getting your info on Miami’s situation?
I believe they can get below the tax by waiving their exhibit 10 contracts, leaving them a bit over $5 million to work with when applying cap charges, etc.
That leaves them a bit short in the above scenario, so they’d have to move Johnson instead of KO.
Basketball Insiders.
Switching Johnson in would also probably not work. That puts them at $138.76 million with 12 guys on the roster after your trade (assuming they keep Jones, Robinson, and Maten and stretch (?!?) the $50k owed to Nunn. Remember that non-drafted players count at the two-year minimum ($1.62 million) if their salaries are lower, so Robinson and Maten both have their hard cap counts increased by a bit. This leaves them $175k below the hard cap with a roster of 12, and they would not be able to meet the minimum roster size throughout the season before reaching the hard cap. (You can be at 12 temporarily, but they would have to add players occasionally, and accordingly I think the trade could not pass as they could not meet their full season requirements.)
Now it’s possible they have an unsigned second somewhere that might enable them to replace Maten and save a little, and thus do roster gymanstics for the season to stay under the hard cap while having the minimum roster, but my understanding is that they don’t (Roberto Duenas was drafted in 1997 and presumably isn’t an option any more, as he turns 44 in November and retired from basketball a decade ago.)
It’s very difficult, if not impossible, for Miami to construct a trade for Paul with OKC that does not involve a third team taking on salary.