By reaching agreements with Josh McRoberts and Danny Granger with the non-taxpayer midlevel exception and biannual exception, the Miami Heat will not be operating as a team with cap space.

With LeBron James, Chris Bosh, Dwyane Wade and Udonis Haslem opting out, they conceivably could have created enough cap space to sign a bigger contract player if they would have renounced the Bird rights to those players and then re-signed them with cap space.

By going over the cap, the Heat will also cut ties with their room midlevel exception.

By using these two exceptions, the Heat, by league rule, have to stay underneath the apron, an effective hard cap set $4 million above the luxury tax line, which is set at $77 million. Under no circumstances can the Heat's payroll go above $81 million this season.