By: TJ Hartnett

TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services

It is still impossible to believe.

After 13 seasons, the best and most important player in the Miami Heat’s 28-year history is gone. Dwyane Wade is a Chicago Bull.

It’s a painful reality to contemplate, but Heat fans have reason for hope.

The team has a solid, multi-talented core of youngsters in guards Johnson and Richardson, forward Justise Winslow and center Hassan Whiteside. It has a potentially perfect, floor-spacing frontcourt compliment to Whiteside in Chris Bosh, assuming health. And it has a strong lead guard in Goran Dragic to spearhead the charge.

In an offense system designed to capitalize upon it, what was once a shocking inability to space the floor, predicated largely on the always imperfect backcourt tandem of Wade and Dragic, could now be considered a strength.

And depending upon where Richardson and Johnson level off with their shooting in an effort for scoring.

That type of shooting could provide Whiteside, now a franchise cornerstone with his four-year, $96.4 million contract secured, the much-coveted floor-spacing into which to maneuver.

At 7-feet, 265-pounds, and with a ridiculous 7-foot-7-inch wingspan, Whiteside alters the geometry of the game. His individual statistics last season, were silly – 17.6 points (on 60.6 percent shooting), 14.7 rebounds and 4.6 blocks per 36 minutes played.

And he did it despite constantly having two, three, and sometimes four defenders draped all over him every time he tried to touch the ball. Because why not collapse at even the hint of danger? Who’s going to hurt you from the perimeter if you do? Not Wade.

This Heat team may well have lost its best player, but it will be fast in transition and it will look to capitalize upon a type of floor spacing it has never before had in the half court.

Imagine what Whiteside could do in an offense that spaced the floor around him. Is it so preposterous to imagine he could become one of the best, and most efficient, scorers in the whole of the NBA?

And here’s another question: Is it so preposterous to imagine that it could be just one elite player who fits the structure away from competing for titles?

But how do you grab that one elite player? With Wade’s departure, the Heat currently has $18.9 million in salary cap space with which to improve this summer.

Of course, it isn’t necessarily wise for the Heat to rush to utilize all of its cap space, even if it does come with a $4.4 million benefit. A mere $4.4 million in extra spending power doesn’t justify spending recklessly.

Perhaps some will be used to do right by Udonis Haslem and Beno Udrih, or to find veteran help on the wing.

However, and whenever, it elects to utilize its cap space, any contracts the Heat doles out are likely to be limited to just one-season in length (which, by the way, limits the pool of available free agents to those who are unrestricted; restricted free agents require contracts of between two and four seasons in length). Because with Riley, there’s always something next.