{"id":853109,"date":"2026-08-12T23:18:09","date_gmt":"2026-08-12T23:18:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/853109\/"},"modified":"2026-08-12T23:18:09","modified_gmt":"2026-08-12T23:18:09","slug":"suns-waive-haywood-highsmith-hoops-rumors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/853109\/","title":{"rendered":"Suns Waive Haywood Highsmith | Hoops Rumors"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Suns have waived veteran wing <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/h\/highsha01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=www.hoopsrumors.com&amp;utm_campaign=2026-08-12_bbr\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Haywood Highsmith<\/a>, according to Michael Scotto of HoopsHype (<a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/MikeAScotto\/status\/2087657671713234988\" rel=\"nofollow\">Twitter link<\/a>). He\u2019ll become an unrestricted free agency on Friday, assuming he goes unclaimed.<\/p>\n<p><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Haywood-Highsmith-Suns-199x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"199\" height=\"300\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-487370\"  \/>Highsmith, 29, missed a significant portion of the 2025\/26 season after he underwent <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hoopsrumors.com\/2025\/08\/heats-highsmith-undergoes-knee-surgery-out-8-10-weeks.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">surgery<\/a> on a torn meniscus in his right knee last August and experienced a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hoopsrumors.com\/2025\/10\/haywood-highsmith-to-be-re-evaluated-in-eight-weeks.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">setback<\/a> in his rehab in October. He eventually signed a two-year, minimum-salary contract with the Suns in February and appeared in seven regular season games and two playoff games for the team.<\/p>\n<p>A quality three-and-D rotation player in Miami, Highsmith averaged 6.3 points, 3.3 rebounds, and 1.3 assists in 22.7 minutes per game during his final two seasons with the Heat from 2023-25. He posted a shooting line of .461\/.388\/.684 and played in 140 regular season contests (68 starts) during that stretch.<\/p>\n<p>Highsmith\u2019s $3,018,158 expiring contract for 2026\/27 wasn\u2019t fully guaranteed, but it did feature a $1MM partial guarantee, so the Suns will be on the hook for that money unless the swingman is claimed on waivers.<\/p>\n<p>The transaction will move the Suns approximately $6.9MM below their second-apron hard cap and will leave the team with 14 players on standard contracts. It will also reduce Phoenix\u2019s projected luxury tax bill by more than $11MM, from about $61.2MM to $50.1MM, though that number will rise again if the club signs a new 15th man.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Suns have waived veteran wing Haywood Highsmith, according to Michael Scotto of HoopsHype (Twitter link). He\u2019ll become&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":853110,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[64,63,59088,590,85],"class_list":["post-853109","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-haywood-highsmith","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/853109","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=853109"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/853109\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/853110"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=853109"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=853109"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=853109"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}