A few quick notes tonight:
• As expected, the Heat extended a $1.2 million qualifying offer to guard Tyler Johnson, making him a restricted free agent and giving the Heat the right to match any offer for him.
Provided Johnson signs with the Heat after Miami has used its cap space, Johnson's cap hit would be limited to $1.2 million regardless of his salary, with the Heat permitted to exceed the projected $94 million cap to accommodate any of Johnson's salary above that amount.
Johnson, 24, can sign with the Heat for as much as $6.2 million next season, or as many as four years and $27 million.
But no other team is permitted to offer him a starting salary of more than $5.6 million next season, in according with the rarely-applicable Gilbert Arenas provision in the NBA's salary cap rules.
Though teams can begin talking to free agents on July 1, another team could not sign Johnson to an offer sheet before July 7.
Johnson expects to remain with the Heat. "Barring something crazy," Johnson told me last month, "I can't foresee anything different for me."
The Heat likes Johnson more as a shooting guard than point guard but believes he can handle both.
Johnson's season was interrupted by shoulder surgery last season before returning during the playoffs. He averaged 8.7 points and 2.2 assists in 36 games, including five starts. He shot 48.6 percent from the field and 38 percent from three-point range.
• After originally planning not to retain Trent Dilfer, ESPN has changed its mind (for reasons it declined to explain) and re-signed him to join Chris Berman and newcomers Matt Hasselbeck and Charles Woodson on Sunday NFL Countdown.
ESPN declined to say whether Tom Jackson will remain on the program, noting that it is still completing its announcer assignments.
• AmericanAirlines Arena will host four college basketball games next season: UM-Wofford and VCU-Illinois on Dec. 3 and Georgetown-LaSalle and Temple-DePaul on Dec. 10.
WADE'S THOUGHTS
In an essay accompanying his photo in ESPN’s annual Body Issue, Dwyane Wade, 34, said he felt like he was 28 last season and believes he has “some good years left.”
Wade appears nude, but contorting himself in such a way that private parts are concealed. He has an arm extended, holding a basketball.
Wade told the magazine that from 2012 through 2014, during the Big Three era, “those years were so hard for me. I felt like my body was betraying me -- out of nowhere, there was so much pain in my knee. Anytime I made a move, and I mean like a step or a walk, any move was painful. I remember just thinking at one point, "What have I done to deserve this?" This is something that's very important to my sport, my career and my future. And it got to a point where I was thinking, "Man, do I want to continue to feel all this pain?
“I felt like my body was betraying me. It was every game, it was every day, literally. During drills in practice one day, I thought, "Nobody in this gym knows how much pain I'm in right now." It hurt to run, stop, plant, and it's killing me. But I didn't let people know. I didn't use no excuse. I just tried to do my therapy to fight through it."
But after working with a new trainer and changing the focus of his training last offseason, Wade missed only seven games due to injury, down from 20 the previous season.
“I'd say I probably felt like I was 28 this season,” he said. “There were times when I did certain things and was like, "Man! That was like young me!" And then there were other times when I played my old-school game and played at my own pace.
“But overall, bodywise, I felt like I was about 28 this year. In the playoffs against Charlotte, I went coast-to-coast and dunked on a guy. I don't really dunk on other guys -- I don't even think about dunking on them -- but I went coast-to-coast and dunked on him. This was the playoffs -- I think it was Game 5 -- and I was like, "Oh, that's what I'm talking about! You still got it when you need it!"
Wade said he has “always had an old-man game -- it's always been a part of me. But obviously when I was 21, 22, 23, I was just more athletic and faster. Now I have to use it more because it's an older game. It's just an understanding that, you know what, I'm not going to try to use my burst all the time because I'm playing against younger, quicker, athletic guys. I'll be playing into their hands if I do that.”
He said he “never envisioned that I would be playing this long. I think I always told myself that my body would tell me, 'Hey, I gave you enough, it's time.' So whenever my body tells me that, I'll listen to it and then I'll make that decision. But nah, I'm not there yet. I've got some good years left.”
He said appearing in ESPN’s Body Issue “is bigger than looking at an athlete's body. It's more about the story we are telling of overcoming my fear of doing this. I had a fear of being naked in front of others and a fear of being judged. When I was young, my belly button was an outie, and I never even wanted to take my shirt off when we were at the swimming pool or outside during water fights. The only people who went into the pool with their shirts on were the kids who were overweight -- and me. I knew that I was different…. I was just never comfortable until about four years ago, when I started feeling comfortable with my body overall.”
He said he works “hard on my body, man… I have to work at it now, where it used to be something that just came natural. Now I have to put in so many hours, but it makes me feel good to see the finished product. Being 34 but still being talked about -- to me, that's great, and it shows a lot about my hard work.
“No one wants to do cardio -- I hate stuff like that, but it's got to be done. One thing we do is go outside and my trainer will make me chase him on a bike. When we work out in Miami, we just keep going around the block until he feels like I've had enough for that day. A lot of people saw me chasing him last summer. It's funny. I get people honking their horns, like, "Go, D-Wade!" It's kind of cool.”
Wade also said he has “the ability to block things out. I've always been able to focus on the task at hand and not let something else bother me. Even when I'm in an arena and they are booing the heck out of me, I don't focus on them booing me, I'm focused on that possession. I'm going through all these checkpoints in my mind. I don't have time to worry about you booing me. Since college, I've always been tough enough where I'm able to put myself in those moments and not think about it -- because once you think about the moment, it becomes too big.”.
Wade will become an unrestricted free agent on July 1 but has said he wants to re-sign with the Heat.
The body issue will be available on line on July 6 and in newsstands July 8. Besides Wade, 18 other athletes are photographed in the issue, include former UM and NFL star Vince Wilfork, former Olympic diver Greg Louganis, Denver Broncos linebacker Von Miller, Chicago Cubs pitcher Jake Arrieta and Pittsburgh Steelers receiver Antonio Brown.
Please click here for LeBron James' comments about the Heat that will surely upset some Heat fans. Plus, a lot of media notes... Twitter: @flasportsbuzz
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