LeBron James: Miami Gave Up Too Much To Sign LeBron To the Team

The Cleveland Cavaliers have made a sign-and-trade deal with the Miami Heat for LeBron James.

While majority owner Dan Gilbert may have been outraged Thursday night, he went into business mode Friday as he made a deal with Miami that has the Heat giving up a lot to get James.

While it may feel good for Cleveland to get something in return for their loss, has Miami given up too many players and too many benefits to both the Cavaliers and the Toronto Raptors for their own good?

Miami is giving up a lot to get James, Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosh to sign to their team, and what has been given up will affect them not only next season, but in the future as well.

The Heat have cleared out its roster, given up draft picks and even traded salary cap space for these three players. These decisions may be too costly for the team in the long run, and prevent them from reaching the level of success that it hopes to reach.

Clearing Out the Benches

Having three superstar players like James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh all on one team is not an inexpensive venture. In order to be able to afford to sign all three of these talented players, Miami had to clear out some of its roster by trading them away or giving them up.

As of right now, the Heat only has seven players on the team, according to ESPN.com .

The team may have just enough players to start a game, but it definitely needs to continue to fill out their roster. Without more players, these seven will get tired very quickly, which is not a good way to try and win games.

For now, the decision to trade away some of its players from last season may hurt the team because now they only people it can afford to bring on are younger players and players who may not be quite on the same level as James, Wade, and Bosh.

Having less experienced or less talented players could hurt the Heat now, because this team has never played together before and the new players may have trouble learning how to play on the level that’s needed of them to support the three stars.

This decision may hurt teh Heat for now, but in the long run it may be beneficial to the franchise as it builds its new team around the three superstar players they have.

In the future, the Heat can begin to branch out and pick up new talent that would play well together with its superstars, and it can trade for other solid players in the NBA, which could be very beneficial.

Giving Up Draft Picks

In the sign-and-trade deals Miami has made with both Cleveland and Toronto, they have given two first round draft picks to each team to be used in the next several years.

The Heat has also given Cleveland the ability to swap second round draft picks with them in 2012 and they have given Cleveland their second round draft pick for 2012 and possibly a future second round draft pick as well.

By giving Cleveland first and second round draft picks, the Heat is severely limiting what talent it will be able to bring in to surround James, Wade and Bosh.

For now, these deals won’t have much effect on the team, because many of these deals don’t take place until after 2012.

In the short-term, these concessions won’t have much impact on the Heat, but down the road they could hurt the team’s ability to build up its roster.

Salary Cap Space

The Heat has also traded $16 million in cap space to the Cavaliers for James. 

In the short-term, this doesn’t seem to be that big of a trade.

This trade creates an exception that allows James to sign for an extra year with the Heat and it allows the Heat to give James more money in raises and bonuses.

However, this will hurt the team in the short-term by limiting how much it can allocate for salaries for other players.

Due to the cost of having James, Wade, and Bosh all on the same team, there will be little left to use to pay the other members of the team.

This will force the Heat to pick up younger, less experienced players, who it can afford to sign.

If the team lucks out, it could sign a few well-seasoned players who just want the chance to play alongside these mega stars, but most likely many players wouldn’t want to take a pay cut just to play second fiddle to James, Wade, and Bosh.

In the long run, this may hurt Miami because it can’t use this cap space to try and trade for better players, or as an incentive to bring other players in.

With all that Miami has given up, maybe it wasn’t entirely worth it to sign James, Wade, and Bosh to the same team.