Jonathan Ingles: Good to be here — I'll skip the small talk because the Klay Thompson story is genuinely one of the sadder sports business stories I've seen in a while, and I don't think anyone's framing it right.
Devin Cross: Sadder? Heat fans are losing their minds in a good way right now—
Jonathan Ingles: Four-time champion. Five-time All-Star. Cleared waivers. Forty-eight hours, zero claims from thirty teams. The buyout from Dallas drops his salary by around ten million dollars. Then Miami signs him August 24th and everyone celebrates like it's a coup.
Devin Cross: Hold on — zero claims? Nobody put in a waiver claim on Klay Thompson?
Jonathan Ingles: Nobody. Because claiming him meant absorbing his full remaining Mavericks salary. And the whole league decided that wasn't worth it. Miami didn't win a negotiation — they won a 48-hour waiting game that nobody else entered.
Devin Cross: No, but — I mean, does the reason matter once Klay's in your lineup next to Giannis Antetokounmpo? Like, Heat fans don't care how he got there—
Jonathan Ingles: It matters because it tells you exactly what the league thinks his ceiling is right now. Thirty teams voted, and the vote was unanimous.
Devin Cross: Thirty teams, one abstention — Miami, on a discount. Okay. I have questions.
Jonathan Ingles: The questions are in the numbers. Shams Charania breaks the signing August 21st — roughly thirteen million over two years. Then The Athletic and NYT come out and say actually, it's eleven-five, with a fifteen percent trade kicker attached. Two credible outlets, two different figures on the same deal.
Devin Cross: Wait — like, meaningfully different? That's a million-and-a-half gap.
Jonathan Ingles: Which is actually the point. The discrepancy doesn't matter as much as the floor. Even at thirteen, you're talking about a man who was making seventeen-five with Dallas. That's a four-million-dollar-a-year pay cut. Over two years that's — call it eight million dollars he left on the table compared to his previous rate.
Devin Cross: No, wait — I mean, okay, but the buyout already happened, so the seventeen-five was already gone, right? The Mavericks ate that. What Klay actually chose between was — actually, no. His choice was: take whatever the open market offers, or nothing. And the open market said eleven-five, maybe thirteen.
Jonathan Ingles: Exactly that. Think of it like a house that won't sell at asking price. Seller drops it a hundred thousand overnight. The house didn't get worse — the market just told you what it's actually worth. That's Klay's career salary right now.
Devin Cross: The house analogy is brutal — and honestly kind of perfect. Four-time champion, five All-Star appearances, and the league sets his price at eleven-five because forty-eight hours of silence already told you everything.
Jonathan Ingles: And Miami walks in as the only buyer. That's not leverage. That's desperation on his side dressed up as demand on theirs.
Devin Cross: I mean — Brian Windhorst called this one of the best additions the Heat could've made. Which, look, I get why he said it, but that's the roster context talking, not the market reality. The market reality is the waiver wire cleared and Klay needed a deal.
Jonathan Ingles: Windhorst is selling historical reputation and he knows it. That quote — 'one of the greatest three-point shooters of all time' — that's a Hall of Fame sentence, not a scouting report. And the Dallas numbers are the reason why.
Devin Cross: Okay, what are the Dallas numbers exactly.
Jonathan Ingles: Sixty-nine games. Eight starts. On a twenty-six win team. A roster so bad it had Kyrie and Luka and still missed the playoffs — and Klay couldn't crack the starting five on that.
Devin Cross: Wait — eight starts? On a twenty-six win team? That's — I mean, that's not a depth chart thing. That's the coaches watching practice every day and going: no.
Jonathan Ingles: Sixty-one appearances off the bench. On a team that won twenty-six games. And Miami just handed him the starting shooting guard job. The role DeRozan turned down, by the way — after they'd already promised it to Klay.
Devin Cross: Hold on — the sequence there matters. Miami promises Thompson the start first, THEN DeRozan says no and goes to Denver? That's not Miami choosing Klay over DeRozan. That's — wait, actually, that's Miami making Klay unavoidable before they even had a real decision to make.
Jonathan Ingles: Pat Riley's sitting there August 21st watching the waiver clock. Minute forty-seven, nothing. No call. He turns to whoever's in the room and they're already drafting the offer. DeRozan finds out the starting role is gone and signs with Denver. That's the timeline.
Devin Cross: I want to say Spoelstra just — like, can't Spoelstra hide the defensive problems? He's done it before with guys who had no business guarding anyone—
Jonathan Ingles: Spoelstra can scheme around a lot of things. He cannot scheme around sixty-one bench appearances on a team that lost fifty-six games. That's not an injury. That's evaluation.
Devin Cross: Fair. And look, whether any of this actually works next to Giannis and Bam Adebayo — that's the part we haven't gotten to yet, and honestly it might be the whole ballgame.
Jonathan Ingles: And the whole ballgame is where this gets meaner. Thompson is 2,899 threes made. He needs 75 to pass Ray Allen for third all-time. That shooting gravity around Giannis is real — I'm not dismissing it. But Miami lost Tyler Herro and Norman Powell this offseason. Their two most reliable shooters. Gone.
Devin Cross: Both of them?
Jonathan Ingles: Both of them. And they replaced them with Thompson, Tim Hardaway Jr., and Bobby Portis. That's old for old. The Heat didn't upgrade the shooting — they rebranded it.
Devin Cross: No, but — wait, Hardaway and Portis aren't the same conversation as Herro. Herro was, like, a genuine bucket. Portis is a big, he's a different role entirely. I mean — actually, that almost makes it worse, right? Because now the perimeter depth behind Thompson is just... Hardaway?
Jonathan Ingles: Hardaway, who is 32. Portis, who is 30. Thompson, who is 36. Bam Adebayo holds it together, Spoelstra draws the schemes — but this roster is one injury from a walking catastrophe.
Devin Cross: Come on, Spoelstra's real though. Like, you can't just — he's squeezed conference finals out of rosters that had no business being there.
Jonathan Ingles: Spoelstra can't guard the two-guard for Thompson on the other end. That's the wall. He schemes everything else — he cannot scheme away a 36-year-old who couldn't start for a 26-win team defending nightly.
Devin Cross: Yeah — and that's, I think that's the actual verdict here. Thompson's gravity is not fake. 2,899 threes, chasing Ray Allen, Giannis driving into a collapsing defense while Klay stands in the corner — that's a real threat. But Miami chose spacing over versatility the second DeRozan walked to Denver. And now Spoelstra has to make that choice work with a roster this old and this thin.
Jonathan Ingles: That's the flat truth. They didn't build a championship roster. They built a championship aesthetic. Whether Spoelstra can turn that into wins is the only question left.
Devin Cross: And the injury margin is basically zero. One Bam Adebayo ankle and this whole thing collapses. That's not a prediction — that's just the math on a veteran roster with no cushion.
Jonathan Ingles: Fine. Maybe Spoelstra works a miracle. He's done stranger things. But the Golden State Warriors had Steph Curry. That's the part nobody wants to say out loud. Thirteen seasons, four rings — none of that happened because Klay Thompson was the engine. He was the perfect second piece. Miami doesn't have that. They have Giannis and a 36-year-old insurance policy.
Devin Cross: Insurance policy — that's actually — wait, yeah, that's the exact frame. They didn't sign Klay Thompson the player. They signed Klay Thompson the insurance policy. And insurance doesn't score 25 a night. My call: Heat get bounced in the second round, and nobody — nobody — blames Erik Spoelstra for it.
Jonathan Ingles: Second round's generous. Clip this.
Devin Cross: We are absolutely clipping this. Go ahead, be wrong with me.
