Miami Heat: 5 Takeaways From Pat Riley’s End-Of-Year Press Conference

5. Landing A Big-Name Player Through Free Agency May No Longer Be Plausible

The very first question Riley was asked after he opened the floor up to discussion was about going whale-hunting this summer. No, not in the literal sense. Rather, chasing the big names in free agency, as he has historically done so effectively.

By his answer, it appears the Heat will have to employ another strategy to land superstar-type players going forward:

"I think the [CBA] is going to dictate a lot of things about free agency. If you go back to 2010, when we were fortunate to secure the services of LeBron [James], CB [Chris Bosh] and Dwyane [Wade], the rules were different. The money was lower. You could sign six-year deals. You had sign-and-trades. All of those things. Today, it’s a lot different. Any great player… is going to have to give great pause to probably walk away from $65 to $70 million, or whatever the number might be, to go somewhere else. He’s going to have to really want to come to you, or want to leave where he is."

Once the details within the new CBA were announced, most Heat fans assumed the days of acquiring opposing stars were probably over. It appears Riley has come to the same realization.

I mean, put in the simplest terms, how likely is it to get a max-level guy to turn down a five-year deal from his original team — one that’s in the range of $210 million — to join a franchise he has little to no familiarity with? And for less money, on top of that? Next to impossible.

So the pipe dreams Het fans may have had about going after Gordon Hayward or Blake Griffin may have been just that: fantasies.

Fortunately, Miami’s team president has a different plan of attack for retooling his future rosters.