Heat willing to give PJ Tucker guaranteed three-year deal?

The Heat are willing to give impending free agent P.J. Tucker a guaranteed three-year deal but don’t want to invest their full mid-level exception on the veteran forward, Ira Winderman of the South Florida Sun Sentinel reports.

Using the full midlevel ($10.3M) would push Miami into a hard-cap situation, which would seriously curtails its ability to make other moves. The Heat instead plan to offer Tucker the maximum allowable three years using the non-Bird exception. The contract would include a starting salary of $8.4M and be worth about $26.5M.

Tucker is declining his $7.35M option in order to enter unrestricted free agency. The Sixers have emerged as the front-runners for Tucker, reportedly ready to offer him a three-year contract worth $27M with incentives that could increase the value to $30M.

If the non-taxpayer mid-level exception is used on Tucker, they’d only be able to offer restricted free agent Caleb Martin or any outside free agent their $4.1M biannual exception, Anthony Chiang of the Miami Herald notes.