2014 NBA Free Agency Rumors & Predictions: Miami Wants Chris Bosh To Go? Latest Signings Show Heat Is Veering In Another Direction Without Bosh!

There are new angles in the 2014 NBA Free Agency Rumors & Predictions drama. One angle is something none of us would expect..that the teams actually want their free agents to go. There's a lot of reading between the lines going on, but the sincerity of Miami's intention to keep the Big Three is questionable at least.

Unfortunately for Chris Bosh, he is obviously the dispensable one.  LeBron James is the best player on the planet and Dwyane Wade is the best player of the franchise. Wade had already passed career milestones of Alonzo Mourning and Tim Hardaway, making himself the best Heat player ever.

Not to say that Miami was planning this. They were not expecting LeBron James' demand, and Pat Riley thought he could strong-arm LeBron to cooperate in his fabled press conference (in similar fashion to what Phil Jackson was doing with Carmelo, asking him to take a pay cut).

This has been a familiar but alarming trend: The GM/team President asking the players to 'sacrifice' to make their jobs easier and save money from their owners pockets. You would think a team like Miami who went to the NBA Finals the last four years would be beyond these concerns, but they aren't.

From Grantland, Zach Lowe explains how the recent signings would almost close the door on Bosh:

"If the Heat wanted to get $10 million under the salary cap - the only realistic way for them to sign an outside free agent at that amount - Bosh and Dwyane Wade could only earn something like $24 million combined next season. They were each due $20 million before they opted out.

A two-man pay cut of that scale just didn't compute, and if Miami thought it was possible, it hadn't done enough digging with the players and their agents.

So they appear to have moved on to Plan B, which might have been Plan A all along: stay over the cap and use the available exceptions for over-the-cap teams to sign useful role players. The Heat used the full midlevel exception, starting at $5.3 million next season, to nab Josh McRoberts. They used the biannual exception of about $2 million to bring in what remains of Danny Granger's lower extremities.^"

In simple terms, by using the midlevel exception on Josh McBob, the Heat will not be allowed to exceed 81 million in salary. They would be allowed to do that for the Big Three, since they have the 'Bird Rights' but they chose not to, and this is a cost-cutting move.

They could still bring back Bosh but it would be at a lower price than the reported $16 million he was asking. Doesn't seem like a very welcoming sign.