"Up and down the roster, literally every player [is available to trade.]. Literally no one is untouchable, not even Hassan Whiteside, by a long shot."
-Zach Lowe, ESPN, on the Miami "Heat."
THAT is good. Because, literally, there is not one player on the "Heat" roster who could start for a championship team. Not one. Not even Whiteside. Not Justice Winslow.
And that is what it is about in Miami: championships. You can't build a championship team out of non-championship level players. That should draw a big ol' DUH, but teams do that. The pre-Pat Riley "Heat" did that: Rony Seikaly, Kevin Edwards, Grant Long--the first instantiation of the "Heat" was built around those players, whom they drafted. They were terrible. Miami management at the time stuck with them and they really did improve! Rony Seikaly became a Most Improved Player of the Year, Grant Long was a workhorse in the league for a decade. But jeezie-peezie, they were still Rony Seikaly, Kevin Edwards and Grant Long! They did not improve into Magic, Kareem, and Worthy, nor Michael, Scottie, and Worm. They improved all the way from 15-67 to 42-40. 42 and forty, okay? THAT WAS IT! Got gored by those "Bulls," who toyed with them, in the 'Loffs.
Pat Riley is not going to channel Lewis Schaffel and Billy Cunningham. That is why this entire roster is for sale. If he could trade all twelve of them and get ONE Big Three-like personage he would win the Nobel Prize in basketball team building. He can't do that. But, he can trade up by offering quantity and the little quality there is (Whiteside, Drajic), up a couple of levels, still a couple below one Big Three-dom but closer. And then he can use that one and wrap him in flotsam and jetsom and go up one more level. He can try free agency again and perhaps lure "not one, not two" Big Threes.
He is going to move quickly. He has to. There is a culture of losing that sets in on a rebuilding team, just look at Cleveland LBJ's first season back, it has not set in on this "Heat" team yet, but it will if Riley doesn't move fast. He knows that and he will. This is good.
