Miami Heat Rumors: Luol Deng still far apart on contract offer

The Miami Heat are trying to fill the void left by LeBron James this summer and so far that has seen Pat Riley retain Chris Bosh, Dwyane Wade and Udonis Haslem as well as sign Josh McRoberts and Danny Granger to free agent deals. But there’s still one big fish that Riley is after to plug into the missing spot on his Big 3 and that’s Luol Deng.

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Deng is said to be mulling an offer from the Heat that would pay him $20 million over two seasons with the team but a new report suggests that the talks aren’t going as swimmingly as previously thought.

According to Brian Windhorst from ESPN.com, the Miami Heat and Luol Deng are still a ways apart on the money being offered as $10 million per year doesn’t look like it will cut it when it comes to making a deal.

Teams chasing Deng know that his figure is between $10-$12 million per season with the number Deng truly wants resting more towards the $12 million mark. That’s a bit pricey for the Heat as they’d end up giving Deng an extra $4 million that they could allot to bringing on a veteran player.

Miami missed on big free agents early on thanks to LeBron not knowing what he wanted to do, but now that they have a void to fill, paying an extra $4 million for a still very serviceable Deng doesn’t seem to be the worst plan in the world.

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