Having remained on the Heat’s roster through opening night, veteran center Nick Richards now has a fully guaranteed salary for the 2026/27 season, according to Ira Winderman of The South Florida Sun Sentinel.
Richards will earn $3,066,143 on his minimum-salary contract, while Miami carries a cap hit of $2,449,421. The team now has 13 players on fully guaranteed contracts, with wing Myron Gardner assured of at least a $500K partial guarantee on his minimum deal. The Heat’s 15th roster spot is currently open.
The Heat signed Richards this offseason in order to provide frontcourt depth behind stars Bam Adebayo and Giannis Antetokounmpo. The 28-year-old, who spent his first six NBA seasons in Charlotte, Phoenix, and Chicago, averaged 5.8 points and 5.1 rebounds in 14.6 minutes per night last season over the course of 48 total outings for the Suns and Bulls.
Richards is one of several players whose contract called for either a full or partial guarantee as long as he wasn’t waived on or before the first day of the 2026/27 regular season. As our tracker shows, the other players in that boat are as follows:
- Mo Bamba (Jazz): Partial guarantee ($250,000) increases to $500,000.
- Isaiah Crawford (Rockets): Non-guaranteed salary ($2,449,421) becomes partially guaranteed ($1,154,325).
- Jaylen Wells (Grizzlies): Partial guarantee ($300,000) increases to full guarantee ($2,296,271).
- Brandon Williams (Warriors): Non-guaranteed salary ($2,625,627) becomes partially guaranteed ($1,400,000).
Additionally, Trail Blazers guard Vit Krejci will see his $250K partial guarantee increase to a full $2,667,944 guarantee and Pelicans forward Trendon Watford will have his partial guarantee bumped from $250K to $500K if they’re not placed on waivers on Wednesday.
For now, we’re assuming that all six of these players – along with Richards – will receive those guarantees.
If word breaks that one or more of them agreed to push back their respective guarantee dates, we’ll share those updates as soon as possible. But in most cases, if a team didn’t intend to lock in that guaranteed money, it would’ve waived the player in the process of setting its regular season roster ahead of Monday’s deadline, like Dallas did with Dwight Powell — his partial guarantee would’ve increased from $1MM to $1.5MM if he had remained under contract through Tuesday.