MIAMI _ NBA free agency is about the new and shiny.
It allows the Orlando Magic to celebrate a four-year, $72 million agreement with Bismack Biyombo a year ago until they realize that all they're getting for that money is ... Bismack Biyombo.
Ditto for the Los Angeles Lakers rushing to the front of the line 12 months ago to lay out $64 million over four years for ... Timofey Mozgov, who you can now find subleasing in Brooklyn.
These are the dangers of the second and third tiers of free agency, the lust for something fresh and different, even it comes from the day-old sushi case.
It is a hunger game that can quickly turn rancid.
Just as the Heat learned two weeks ago that the No. 14 pick in the NBA draft only gets you so far, with potential the ultimate upside of the selection of Bam Adebayo, so, too, can free agency prove to be a tease beyond the top tier.
It's hardly as simple as: if you've got it, spend it.
Because the bills keep coming due annually.
Or do we have to remind again about four years at $70 million last summer from the Portland Trail Blazers for Evan Turner?
Or four years at $72 from the New York Knicks for the player formerly known as Joakim Noah?
Or four at $52 from the Milwaukee Bucks for Miles Plumlee, who since has been relocated to the Charlotte Hornets and now Atlanta Hawks?
Even backing away from that $47 million that Dwyane Wade eventually took over two years from the Chicago Bulls last summer now appears prudent on the Heat's part (a total that instead got the Heat four seasons of Tyler Johnson).
These are the trap doors of free agency, the ones that must be avoided, because there is no NFL-type escape hatch, with just about all of these dollars guaranteed.
In that regard, since their hand was forced with Chris Bosh's maximum deal amid the mayhem of LeBron James' 2014 departure, prudence has largely defined the Heat's approach. So instead of allowing emotion to get in the way, the Heat allowed Luol Deng to walk for the Lakers' four-year, $72 million offer last season (with the Lakers now looking to walk away from that deal, as well).
This is not to say that the moves at the top tier can't go wrong. It could be argued that Chandler Parsons was last year's free-agency equivalent of Gordon Hayward. He received four years at $98.5 million from the Memphis Grizzlies ... practically never to be heard from again.
It happens.
The Dallas Mavericks, in fact, were widely criticized for their four-year, $94 million contract to Harrison Barnes last summer. Based on the new cap parameters, that practically comes off as a value contract.
Just as Hassan Whiteside's four-year, $98 million deal signed last July with the Heat does.
And the five-year, $90 million deal Goran Dragic agreed to with the Heat the year before.
The numbers were and will be staggering.
They key is to make sure they don't get in the way.
The Heat largely have done that during Pat Riley's tenure. And when they do go wrong, they tend to go wrong on a smaller, Josh McRoberts scale.
Even the Tyler Johnson contract, with its $12.5 million average, falls well in line with the NBA's going rate (with only the back-loaded structuring creating issues).
It could be argued that the greatest reach during the Riley era was one that came with a reprieve, with the NBA voiding the seven-year, $101 offer to Juwan Howard in 1996 due to what the league perceived as a salary-cap violation.
Anyone can spend in free agency. That's the easy part. It's the return on those investments that define a front office and a franchise's future.
