Commentary: Bosh situation biggest what-if for Heat this offseason

This is prime time for the NBA what-if game.

We're not just talking about free-agency rumors, the cotton candy of every sports columnist, but also the good old-fashioned practice of fans believing that the universe is conspiring against their team and their team alone.

Cleveland is feeling that at the moment because Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love were hurt for the 2015 NBA Finals and now Love is sidelined again in the middle of the 2016 championship series.

That's significant, but so is the fact that Golden State is on a historic run of efficient, exciting, enlightening basketball that figures to crumple just about anybody LeBron James might bring with him.

It's easy enough to play the same mind game with the Miami Heat, as mindless as it may be.

Chris Bosh, for instance, has got everybody out of sorts because of lingering health issues that are sure to scare free agents away. Pat Riley doesn't know what he can do or what he can't do, but he's got to do something, right?

What Riley remembers, however, and what too many others don't, is the way that Bosh rescued him a couple of summers ago by providing a foundation on which the franchise could rebuild. LeBron had just bolted for Cleveland, which left the Heat with Norris Cole, Josh McRoberts, Danny Granger and rookie Shabazz Napier on the payroll.

That's right, even Dwyane Wade was a free agent at the time and the Bulls were gauging his interest in a return to his hometown of Chicago.

Within hours of LeBron's shocking departure, however, Bosh re-signed with the Heat. Now we could debate whether Miami gave him too much for too long ($118 million over five years) but Bosh had another offer on his plate, a maximum contract that would have put him in Houston with Dwight Howard and James Harden.

That would have been a recipe for a total makeover in Miami and not the relatively quick rebound to playoff form that we're seeing instead.

Just call it a wash with Bosh. Good guy. Bad breaks. To be continued.

Here's another Heat what-if. The 2007-08 team was the worst in the league, giving Miami a 25 percent chance of winning that summer's draft lottery. Cool.

Then the Bulls, with a 1.7 percent chance, won the ping-pong war and jumped to the front of the line. They got Derrick Rose, the league MVP at 22, and Miami got Michael Beasley instead. Cold.

Here's another one. What if Michael Jordan had been able to hit a curveball?

Because Jordan hit .202 for the Class-AA Birmingham Barons in 1994, his first retirement from the NBA didn't stick. That brought basketball's greatest player back to the Bulls and put a giant postseason roadblock in Riley's way.

Overall, MJ was 10-1 in playoff games against the Heat with a couple of dismissive first-round sweeps included. The real killer, though, was the 1997 postseason.

Miami came in more hopeful than ever that year with a 61-21 regular-season record that remains the second-best in franchise history. Still, there were Jordan and Scottie Pippen and company waiting to reject the Heat 4-1 in the Eastern Conference final. It was eight years before Miami got that close to the NBA Finals again.