Josh McRoberts PF - 6’10, 240lbs - 31 years old - 11 years of experience
This is probably it for McRoberts, a player whose contract kept him in the league the last four years, who played only 83 games and 1,578 minutes in that time with various ailments. He has been neither a productive nor healthy NBA player for a while, and while a younger McRoberts would very much draw the eye as a stretch four in this new-age NBA, he’s not been able to show there is still a spark in the fire to throw a log on.
Josh McRoberts PF, 6’10, 240lbs, 30 years old, 10 years of experience
McRoberts’s injury problems continued in 2016/17, playing only 22 games and 381 minutes for combined totals of 81 games and 1,270 in the three seasons of his Heat career. And when he has played, he hasn’t been good. This should be McRoberts’s prime, but the heady, passing, shooting, wily and rather unique big man of his past career is now but a memory. McRoberts has opted into his contract for next season, as expected, but all that makes him is a stretch provision candidate.
Player Plan: One more years at $6,021,975 remaining. He will never be traded for value at this point, nor will he likely contribute more with the roster spots than many others could, so either stretch if finances elsewhere necessitate, or keep as an expiring contract trade piece until the deadline then waive for a call-up.
In some additional related bookkeeping, the reason for many of the players listed in the previous list was due to the NBA's contract guarantee date. All players on NBA rosters on or after January 10th have their contracts guaranteed for the remainder of the season (future seasons are unaffected); this also includes waivers. In-season waivers are 48 hours long and do not include weekends; therefore, with the 10th of January being a Monday, players had to be waived by close of business on Wednesday 5th in order to have cleared waivers before the deadline date.
Despite three years of NBA experience, and having almost all of his contract for next season guaranteed (it became $500,000 on June 20th), McBob is still doing summer leagues. He played his first ever significant minutes last year and responded with a 14.8 PER, averaging 4.3 points, 3.0 rebounds and 1.0 assists in 12.5 minutes per game. McRoberts is capable of a lot more than the minimum salary deep-bench role he has been stuck with in his first three NBA seasons, and finally hinted at that last year. Still aged only 23, he is deserving of a bigger role. This means no unnecessary depth, Indiana.
