I originally said Riley did a good job of "reloading immediately" given their situation. This was implied immediately after LeBron chose Cleveland over Miami. At that point Miami had Wade, Chalmers, Shabazz, McRoberts, and over $35M in cap space. There was no way Miami would be a bottom feeder so Riley did the best he could and signed Deng and Bosh to reload for the playoffs while maintaining flexibility for 2016 (with Birdman, Haslem, Wade, and Deng's contracts). At THAT time obviously Riley didn't know about Hassanity forthcoming nor did he know McRoberts was immediately be out for the season. But he made the right move regardless because Miami had no realistic upcoming picks. Going forward, Wade will likely retire after 2016 being 35 years old. If not, I can see Miami giving him a small 'vet loyalty contract' around $8M a year for two years, which is still more than any other NBA team would pay him to be injured 30 games per season. If Dragic works out for them this season, he may get resigned for something close to the max under the old CBA. Whiteside's looking great, but Jeremy Lin looked great too for a quarter of a season. If Whiteside continues to dominate all of next season then he'll get paid but I have my doubts - I don't ever recall a player going from min to max salary in one jump. Most likely he'll level off into a lower paid version of DeAndre Jordan, something like $12M a year under the new CBA. Deng will most likely be the odd man out. So realistically the Heat will pay $12M/yr to Whiteside, $25M/yr to Bosh, and $14M/yr to Dragic. They'd let Deng go, and then see if Wade can still stay on the court or in front of his man. They would still have a little under $30M to work with. Knowing Riley, he'll try to bring in another all-star or semi-allstar and spend breadcrumbs on well-found D-League talent like their doing now.
Outside of Wade Dragic is 28, Bosh is about 30. They let Deng go in your scenario, what allstar or semi allstar is going to join them? They ride out CB's years and better start sucking. It is the best way to start over. Trying to be Cuban and ride Dirk's coattails as long as he can is absolutely the worst option.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Driving to the airport whit personal driver <a href="https://twitter.com/LuolDeng9">@LuolDeng9</a> and DJ <a href="https://twitter.com/youngwhiteside">@youngwhiteside</a> lol <a href="https://twitter.com/MiamiHEAT">@MiamiHEAT</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/HeatNation?src=hash">#HeatNation</a> <a href="http://t.co/LIxa8z9pGs">pic.twitter.com/LIxa8z9pGs</a></p>— Goran Dragic (@Goran_Dragic) <a href="https://twitter.com/Goran_Dragic/status/573550868517294081">March 5, 2015</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>