Miami, FL (SportsNetwork.com) – Get ready for a sequel to The Decision.<\/p>\n
The Miami Heat were informed Tuesday that LeBron James will exercise his early termination option and explore the free-agent market.<\/p>\n
Heat president Pat Riley wasn’t surprised by the news.<\/p>\n
“I was informed this morning of his intentions. We fully expected LeBron to opt-out and exercise his free agent rights, so this does not come as a surprise,” Riley said in a statement.<\/p>\n
He added that the team looks “forward to sitting down with LeBron and his representatives and talking about our future together.”<\/p>\n
James, a four-time NBA MVP, had a June 30 deadline to decide whether to opt out of the final two years of his deal with the Heat. He was scheduled to earn $20 million next season.<\/p>\n
The 29-year-old James signed with the Heat in 2010 after spending his first seven years in Cleveland, announcing the news on a television special that drew plenty of criticism.<\/p>\n
Miami reached the NBA Finals in each of James’ four years with the club, winning back-to-back titles in 2012 and 2013. The Heat were denied a three- peat by the San Antonio Spurs earlier this month.<\/p>\n
James averaged 27.1 points, 6.9 rebounds and 6.4 assists in 77 games last season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Miami, FL (SportsNetwork.com) – Get ready for a sequel to The Decision. The Miami Heat were informed Tuesday that LeBron James will exercise his early termination option and explore the free-agent market. Heat president Pat Riley wasn’t surprised by the news. “I was informed this morning of his intentions. We fully expected LeBron to opt-out […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[25,24,23],"class_list":["post-19947","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nba","tag-heat","tag-miami","tag-miami-heat"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19947","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19947"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19947\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19957,"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19947\/revisions\/19957"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19947"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19947"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19947"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}