NBA Playoffs 2011: Pat Riley Needs to Shop Chris Bosh This Summer

The Miami Heat are not in an envious position heading into this summer, which is filled with uncertainty regarding many issues in the NBA.

A new collective bargaining agreement between the league and players will have to be agreed to since the current one expires on June 30. If a new deal isn’t reached by June 30, the league will go into a lockout on July 1. 

With many small market teams losing money and becoming increasingly unable to retain superstar players, the possibility of implementing a hard salary cap is becoming more and more likely. 

A hard salary cap, like the one the NFL and NHL use, does not allow teams to spend over a certain amount of money each season on player salaries. 

Currently in the NBA, there are several exceptions that allow teams to go over the cap to sign or trade players. 

A hard cap would mean every team is restricted to spend the same amount on player salaries, and larger markets would not be able to spend their riches on whoever they want. 

The Heat have three players: LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh who are making over $100 million in total over the next several seasons. 

This means the Heat will have about $50 million out of maybe $55-60 million of salary cap space used for three players. The league salary cap for the current 2011 season is about $58 million, and is unlikely to change drastically in 2012. 

When Heat general manager Pat Riley built this mega-team in the summer, he knew a hard cap was a possibility entering this summer given the financial hardships many teams have been suffering through. 

To allow the Heat to be competitive for the future, Riley will need to trade one of his three superstars to free up enough salary cap space to surround his stars with quality teammates. 

Chris Bosh is the guy that has to go for Miami. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a Chris Bosh hater, but he’s not a superstar. Not a top 15 player either. 

Yet, Pat Riley felt it was acceptable to pay him a top five salary. Bosh’s production doesn’t justify his salary. 

Yes, he’s had to sacrifice more of his game and stats than Wade and James have this season, but that doesn’t make up for the fact that he’s making over $100 million to be the THIRD best player on the team. 

To be honest, Bosh wasn’t even worth $100 million to the Toronto Raptors, the team that drafted him and whom he left for Miami. He’s not a number one caliber player to any team.

The biggest question surrounding Bosh’s departure is will anyone take on his contract?

Well, there will only be a few teams able to, and very few of them will want to start off a hard cap era by acquiring a player making the maximum salary. 

If this were the summer of 2012, when New York, New Jersey, Orlando and others will have big cap space to spend, I’d say Riley could find a suitor for Bosh. 

But in 2011, with very few teams willing to spend, or having money to spend at all, the task of moving Bosh will be immensely difficult. 

To make a trade work involving Bosh, Miami would need to take back a similar amount of salary. But with a hard cap, they won’t want to because the whole reason to trade Bosh is to dump salary. 

Unless the Heat were going to acquire multiple quality players who together match Bosh’s salary, then maybe a deal could work. 

But no team is going to part ways with multiple young players for Bosh, and Miami has no one else of value to trade other than James and Wade, who both aren’t going anywhere. 

What seemed like a genius master plan by Pat Riley last summer has since taken a turn for the worst. But the most troubling part about this is he should have seen this hard salary cap scenario coming. 

The Miami Heat might have one shot to win an NBA title with their “big three,” because Chris Bosh might not get a chance beyond this year’s NBA finals.

Nicholas Goss is an NBA, Oklahoma City Thunder, and Boston Bruins featured columnist at Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter for the best NBA/NHL news and analysis.