Could a big star still come to the Heat? A real analysis of team options

First installment of a two-part series.

Craving is a generally unproductive emotion. Whether it’s money, a stronger emotional connection, or the simpler times of childhood, little is accomplished by that craving.

And that’s the same emotion impatient Heat fans must fight this season.

Miami is the only team to make the Eastern Conference playoffs that hasn’t added a skillful player to the rotation this offseason. That has left many fans of the club yearning for Pat Riley to get the next disgruntled star and launch a harpoon to catch a whale, a phrase Riley probably regrets using.

There is a clear reality: there is no new big star walking through the doors of FTX Arena and it may be a while before that changes.

What seemed more realistic as a potential pre-deadline trade option, Portland star Damian Lillard poured cold water on that idea this week.

Lillard, a guest on “The Dave Pasche Podcast,” reiterated his happiness to remain in Portland, even as the Trail Blazers are in the midst of a semi-rebuild as they try to remain competitive.

“Yes, I plan to be a Blazer for life,” Lillard said.

“I’ve seen people saying, ‘Man, you’ve got to get out of there! You have to do this, you have to do that.’ But I’m the kind of person that I’m never going to march to the beat of anybody else’s drum,” Lillard said.

“I will always do what feels best for me and that is what I really feel in my heart. I have said this many times and many think: ‘He is being loyal!’ and ‘Loyalty this, loyalty that’ and I say I’m naturally a loyal person, but I do have a level of loyalty to the organization, but this loyalty that they’re talking about is ultimately to who I am as a person. I’m being loyal to who I am and I’m fine because I’m someone who believes in what I believe.”

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Perhaps Lillard will change his mind before the Feb. 9 trade deadline.

But it doesn’t sound like it.

“I think I can do it,” Lillard said of the possibility of winning a title.

“Now everyone else could say, ‘There’s no way the Trail Blazers are going to win. They need to do this, they need to do that.’ But that’s not how I feel about the situation.”

“I feel that we will have the opportunity to win, that moment is going to come and that opportunity is going to come.”

So what about Washington Wizards guard Bradley Beal, another Heat target in recent years?

Don’t count on that either, even though Beal told me three years ago the Heat would lure him if he ever left Washington.

“Winning a championship here would mean a lot to me,” Beal explained in July after signing a five-year, $251 million contract. “That would mean more than going away and playing with four other stars. I firmly believe in my heart that I can win here.”

Beal requested and received the NBA’s only no-trade clause, but he has the ability to waive it to any team that appeals to him.

But here’s the point: The Heat’s first three months of this season can’t just be about longing, hoping and waiting for the next big thing. It’s also not a realistic strategy for improvement, even with all the allure Miami has to offer.

Do the Heat need another star to propel them past Boston and Milwaukee? Probably.

But you could be waiting a while.

Heat fans lived their glory after three stars chose Miami and found a way here: LeBron James, Chris Bosh and Jimmy Butler.

Since then, not one of the stars of the trade rumors (Kevin Durant or Donovan Mitchell most recently) tried to force their way to Miami.

Brooklyn won’t trade Durant, period, and Mitchell didn’t request a relocation to the Knicks or Heat.

He reiterated this week how happy he is to be in Cleveland now.

At some point, likely before the February trade deadline, the Miami team might need to add a useful piece to the rotation rather than hold on to its entire first-round NBA Draft inventory.

But now is not the time to do it, not for Jae Crowder, Myles Turner or Bojan Bogdanovic.

But at some point, if we get to January and the Heat trail the Celtics and Bucks on the table, and any other team, it will be time to temporarily abandon the strategy of racking up first-round picks to offer them in an eventual trade for a star, if there is an opportunity to exchange any of those picks for a good piece for rotation.

So yearn if you wish.

But waiting for a star seems more like wishful thinking than a plausible strategy at this point.

If you’re going to yearn, yearn for Kyle Lowry and Victor Oladipo to return to their 2019 All-Star form.

That seems more realistic, at this point, than expecting a star to try to force his team to trade him to Miami.

Coming up Friday for part two: an examination of the Heat’s incentives to stay competitive. The risks and rewards.