MIAMI — There was a time when the Miami Heat thought they had their center of the future. No, not of the Bam Adebayo heart-and-hustle ilk, but of the nobody-does-it-with-blocks variety.
Ultimately, Hassan Whiteside wasn’t it.
So when Jimmy Butler was brought in, Whiteside was sent out.
Two Heat visits to the NBA Finals followed
Which brings us to Sunday, and what didn’t happen, because of what the Heat didn’t allow to happen.
Kel’el Ware remains in Miami, as the Heat’s next-man-up shot-blocking, lob-threatening, looming length of the future.And Kevin Durant is now off from the Phoenix Suns to the Houston Rockets.
Of all the permutations put into play by the Heat to potentially land Durant, Ware was not one of them. That has been made clear by both sides of the Heat/Suns equation
Which is all well and good if there truly is belief that the 7-footer taken out of Indiana a year ago at No. 15 is the face of the Heat’s future in the middle.
Unlike with Whiteside and his $98 million albatross of a contract, Ware remains on the NBA’s rookie scale, the type of plus value that is not necessarily the case with 36-year-old Durant and his impending two-year, $122 million extension.
So there is that.
But there also is danger in counting on projected success versus proven success.
For years, as the Heat dealt first-round picks as if mass produced in some type of Pat Riley warehouse; the approach long has been about going with the proven.
So draft picks to lock LeBron James and Chris Bosh into longer deals.
Two first-round picks to secure Goran Dragic.
A first-rounder to finalize the Butler trade.
Heck, even a first-rounder still due in 2027 or ’28 for Terry Rozier (who actually was a proven scoring commodity at the time of that ill-fated trade).
And yet now . . . a line drawn.
Hesitance to move draft capital for Durant beyond the No. 20 pick in Wednesday night’s first-round of the NBA draft.
Reluctance to move off 2022 first-round pick Nikola Jovic and, for a while, even 2023 first-round pick Jaime Jaquez Jr.
And the refusal to move off Ware, last year’s first-rounder.
To a degree, that should be heartening to those who question whether Riley, at 80, still is committed to future thought.
And it is a timeline that still plays for Tyler Herro, who just turned 25 in January.
But it also is a dramatic deviation from the win-now culture emphasized by Riley and implored by Erik Spoelstra, who pushed, pulled and prodded for play-in wins and a playoff berth from this past season’s 37-45 roster.
Yes, Ware, just 21, could pan out, but the most recent image was of being played off the floor in the playoffs against the Cleveland Cavaliers.
With Jaquez, the regression was real.
And with Jovic, it has been steps both forward and backward, still with no defined Heat role (adding to the consternation of how at the same time can be considered off limits in a Durant deal).
As for future draft capital, that long has been an NBA great unknown, as is even Wednesday night’s No. 20 pick for the Heat.
As for proven quantity? That would have been Durant, sixth in the league in scoring this past season, age be damned.
