Can the Miami Heat Afford to Build Around Dwyane Wade This Offseason?

The 2015 NBA offseason will be a critical one for the Miami Heat. The Heat have one of the most bizarre salary-cap situations in the league, and it's hard to say where they'll stand financially after the dust settles this summer.

Miami has to juggle potential 2015 opt-outs from Dwyane Wade and Luol Deng, and the team needs to make a serious run at re-signing Goran Dragic (who's all but certain to opt out). On top of that, Miami needs to carve out enough cap space to re-sign Hassan Whiteside when his deal expires in 2016.

Balancing all of that won't be easy, and it begs an interesting question: Can the Heat afford to build around Wade? Considering how tangled their cap situation is, they're going to have to take a serious look at his age (he's 33) and how much money they're willing to commit to him.

Wade is having a very good season despite being banged up for much of the year. He's averaging 21.6 points and 4.8 assists per game on 54.1 percent true shooting. He's also posting a PER of 22.2, good for 12th in the league. Unfortunately, history indicates that he may not be able to keep up that level of play for long.

Only five guards in NBA history have recorded a PER of at least 22 at age 34 or older. And only Michael Jordan and Jerry West were the top offensive options on their respective teams.

PER is an admittedly rough metric that essentially ignores defense. But it is a solid barometer of offensive production and tends to correlate with the best offensive players in the league. It doesn't paint a particularly pretty aging picture for Wade, and that should be of some concern to Miami.

That, however, is not to say that he's about to fall off a cliff production-wise. His decline should actually be relatively gentle. What explosiveness he's lost over the years, he's made up in craftiness. Few players are as patient when navigating defenses in the paint, and he's added a terrific post game to his arsenal.

Courtesy of Instagiffer

Still, Wade isn't going to be able to single-handedly carry an offense for much longer. He'll need a lot of help moving forward. And in that sense, it would absolutely be a mistake to hand him a max deal this (or next) summer and expect to be truly competitive.

Fortunately, both he and the Heat seem to understand that they need help in order to compete. In March, Wade told The Palm Beach Post's Jason Lieser:

"

That five is pretty good, if everyone's healthy, but you need a little bit more than that. I feel that it gives us a better opportunity than we had coming into this season, then you continue to add certain pieces if you can. If we come back next season healthy and everybody's going, we still need to add a few pieces. We could be pretty good.

"

Wade's a smart guy. He seems to understand Miami's place in the league and likely has a pretty good idea of its cap situation, as well. It wouldn't be at all surprising to see him take a pay cut similar to that of Dirk Nowitzki or Tim Duncan in order to ensure that the Heat can add (or keep) players and remain competitive.

And in trading for Dragic, the Heat have also proved they understand that they can't rely on Wade forever. Dragic is obviously not a guarantee to re-sign. But Miami can offer him a bigger contract than anyone, something like a five-year deal of upwards of $100 million, per NBC Sports' Brett Pollakoff.

Dragic is the perfect player to have in Miami—a high-scoring guard who can take on more of the offense as Wade slowly declines.

The Dragic-Wade dynamic hasn't been perfect this season. Wade is using nearly 35 percent of the Heat's possessions, whereas Dragic is using just 21.9 percent, a lower mark than that of Michael Beasley. But an offseason of tinkering should help fix that problem.

As Grantland's Zach Lowe mentioned in December, the Heat are basically running the same offense that they ran last season—one that can sometimes marginalize point guards as spot-up shooters. That's not ideal for Dragic.

They'll have plenty of time this summer to come up with fun ways to use him on and off the ball. They've already shifted some of their offense to better suit him—most notably giving him more weak-side opportunities on give-and-go plays.

Dragic has also become very good at leveraging Whiteside's and Chris Andersen's dives to the rim into easy corner threes.

Courtesy of Instagiffer

Even after re-signing Dragic, in this scenario, Miami should still have enough cap room to pursue a big free agent in 2016. There are a lot of great 2016 free agents, but the obvious goal would be to re-sign Whiteside to a long-term deal.

As is the case with Dragic, the Heat haven't quite figured out how to best use Whiteside. They haven't had a traditional big heavily involved in their offense for years, and it may take some time to work him fully into the mix. That will be especially important when Chris Bosh returns—his shooting makes him the perfect partner for Whiteside.

But even despite all of that, Whiteside has emerged as a potentially elite rim-protector and a devastating pick-and-roll man. He's scoring 1.36 points per possession on rolls to the basket, putting him in the league's 96th percentile on those play types.

He even has a burgeoning post game that, with some polish, could turn into a real weapon. He's shooting 50 percent on post-up plays this season and doesn't often turn the ball over in those sets. His footwork isn't great, and he mostly scores on routine jump hooks. Still, he's got great touch around the rim and could be a dangerous post scorer in time.

As it stands, the Heat seem to be building around Wade in a smart, forward-thinking way. It's almost similar to how the San Antonio Spurs have built around their aging stars over the past few years. The Heat aren't building on Wade alone. He's one of several key pieces (Whiteside, Bosh, Dragic, etc.) Miami is building around.

The Heat are making a concerted effort to surround Wade with talented young players who can pick up the slack if he can't bring it every night. In that way, they're maximizing his current output while keeping a careful eye on the future. It's hard to argue with that kind of team-building.

All statistics accurate as of April 7, 2015 and courtesy of NBA.com/Stats or Basketball-Reference.com unless stated otherwise.