Amid contract uncertainty, Swider and Williams continue to push forward with Heat summer team
The three who closed last season as Miami Heat two-way contract players are no longer signed to contracts with the Heat.
In fact, forward Jamal Cain reportedly agreed to a two-way contract with the New Orleans Pelicans on Friday after spending the last two seasons on a two-way deal with the Heat.
Then there’s Cole Swider and Alondes Williams, who also closed last season as Heat two-way contract players. Swider and Williams remain with the Heat’s summer league team, but they’re now unrestricted free agents and eligible to sign a two-way contract or standard contract outright with any other NBA team after Miami withdrew qualifying offers to both players on Thursday.
“Play and hopefully play a lot, play well and earn my next opportunity,” Swider said of his goal during summer league with the Heat after having his qualifying offer pulled.
By staying with the Heat’s summer team despite no longer having qualifying offers from Miami, Swider and Williams will have the opportunity to showcase their talent in front of executives and scouts from all 30 NBA teams during Las Vegas Summer League. The Heat opened Las Vegas Summer League with a 119-114 win over the Boston Celtics on Saturday and continue the summer circuit on Monday against the Oklahoma City Thunder (6 p.m., ESPNU) on UNLV’s campus — the first two of at least five summer league games for Miami in Las Vegas.
“I got to,” Williams said when asked if he views the week ahead in Las Vegas as an open audition for a spot in the NBA. “I ain’t got nowhere else to go. I got to do whatever I can to to try to see what other teams can see in me.
” The Heat’s decision to withdraw its qualifying offers to Swider and Williams wasn’t necessarily surprising, considering the state of Miami’s roster.
With 14 players signed to standard contracts for next season, the Heat’s roster actually remains one short of the regular-season limit of 15 players under standard contracts. But the standard roster is still essentially full for now because the Heat is expected to open this upcoming regular season with 14 players on standard deals — which is permitted by NBA rules — because of its salary-cap crunch.
Adding a 15th player to a fully guaranteed standard contract to reach the regular-season roster limit prior to the start of the regular season would push the Heat above the punitive second apron, which Miami does not intend to cross during the 2024-25 NBA calendar unless it’s to acquire an All-Star talent.
Along with no longer having room under the second apron to sign Swider or Williams to fill the 15th spot on its standard roster, the Heat’s three two-way contract slots are also currently filled with Keshad Johnson, Zyon Pullin and Dru Smith. Johnson and Pullin are new faces after going undrafted last month, and Smith is a familiar face who has spent some part of the last three seasons with the Heat.
“I’ve learned not to expect anything. I’ve learned that throughout this whole entire process of being an undrafted guy, getting a two-way, getting cut last year, coming into training camp and nothing was guaranteed, getting a two-way,” said Swider, who spent his first NBA season on a two-way contract with the Los Angeles Lakers before being waived and then spending this past season on a two-way deal with the Heat.
“I’ve learned you can’t expect anything. Even when you sign a contract, you can get traded. A lot of things can go on. That’s every person in this business. It can be our equipment manager, it can be anyone. Anyone can get let go at any time.
I just try to stay true to the work, stay true to the process and just go one step at a time.” Swider, 25, and Williams, 25, are looking for the first standard NBA contract of their careers after both went undrafted in 2022. They excelled in the G League last season with the Heat’s developmental affiliate, the Sioux Falls Skyforce, but that wasn’t enough to immediately earn another deal from Miami for this upcoming season.
However, there’s still a chance that Swider and Williams could return to the Heat for next season, as they remain eligible to sign a new contract (two-way or standard deal) with Miami. But the Heat would likely need to waive a player to bring back Swider and/or Williams, whether it’s on a two-way or standard contract.
“That’s not up for me to decide, right,” Swider said when asked if he feels like his play warrants more than a two-way contract for this upcoming season. “I’m just going to go out there, play as hard as I can, play to the best of my ability and make it hard on all these teams not to give me a contract.”
As a 6-foot-8 three-point specialist, Swider features a skill set that most teams around the league covet.
Swider established himself as one of the G League’s top three-point shooters last season with the Heat’s developmental affiliate, shooting 47.1 percent on 10 three-point attempts per game with the Sioux Falls Skyforce. Among the 10 players in the G League who finished last season averaging 10 or more three-point attempts per game, Swider finished with the top three-point percentage.
During two summer league appearances with the Heat in the California Classic ahead of Las Vegas Summer League, Swider averaged 19 points per game on 9-of-16 (56.3 percent) shooting from three-point range. In Saturday’s win over the Celtics to open Las Vegas Summer League, Swider continued to drain threes with 15 points on 4-of-5 shooting from behind the arc.
“Cole, he’s been a leader from Day 1,” Heat player development coach and summer league head coach Dan Bisaccio said. “He’s really in the guys’ ear, he’s helping to keep them organized. But then he’s also going out there and he’s working extremely hard. Whether it’s just a shooting drill or a defensive drill, you can just feel his intensity out there.
” Williams also impressed in the G League with 20.3 points, 5.3 rebounds, 7.1 assists and 1.3 steals per game in 43 appearances for the Skyforce last season.
While playing in each of the Heat’s three summer league games in the California Classic, Williams averaged 10.7 points, five rebounds, 3.7 assists and 1.3 steals per game while shooting 32.5 percent from the field and 3 of 13 (23.1 percent) on threes. But Williams was held out of Saturday’s victory to begin Las Vegas Summer League, watching the game from the team’s bench.
“Alondes came in with that energy and that smile,” Bisaccio said following Friday’s practice in Las Vegas. “When he’s doing that, it just lights up the room. I’ve told him a lot, he’s a leader whether he knows it or not sometimes. And he does, he always understands. He leads by example. But when his voice is out there, it speaks volumes.
” Swider and Williams’ NBA future may be up in the air at the moment, but the Heat’s coaching staff will continue to handle them like they’re part of the team’s development program.
“First and foremost, I just want to say for us as a coaching staff, we’re going to continue to coach them hard, we’re going to continue to challenge them,” Bisaccio emphasized. “This doesn’t change our opinion of where they’ve been working and how they’ve been progressing with us in our system. We still have things we’re challenging them to work on and improve every day.
” Swider and Williams will continue their work in the Heat’s development program, too.
“That again speaks to their character, the fact that they’re willing to do that no matter what the other thing is,” Bisaccio added. “They’re controlling what they can control and that’s the best thing.”
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