Heat's future up in the air due to numerous hypotheticals

Stating that Hassan Whiteside will definitely get a maximum contract raises the issue of media assuming it knows more than it knows.

We could ask whether the Golden State Warriors starting at 10-0 is a case of the team being historically great or the rest of NBA being mediocre. Maybe the CBA has diluted the talent pool so evenly among all the teams, that a good team seems great in today's league. Just looking at the standings today could give misleading conclusions how good a team really is.

Kevin Durant said he doesn't even know what he'll do next summer, while people he has never met are speaking on his behalf. The inspired performance of Tyler Johnson may increase his market value beyond what the Miami Heat have budgeted for him. But then again the season is not even a month old, so it is way too early to tell what his market value will be in the summer of 2016.

Beyond premature talk of what he can command next season, only Whiteside and his agent can speak for him once negotiating time begins (not only with the Heat but among other suitors). We saw with the DeAndre Jordan saga that some very strange things can happen in July. The roles of the Heat players in the first two weeks have changed dramatically since they were initially signed, and will continue to evolve until the February trading deadline when a few personnel changes might occur. Their salary values will continue to fluctuate as the season goes on, practically on a daily basis like the stock market.

The Heat have a better record than last season at this time, when they stood at 5-4 after scoring only 75 points in a loss to the Indiana Pacers on Nov. 12, 2014. They have emerged as a defensive juggernaut who will surely look forward to be tested against the so-far invincible Warriors, featuring Stephen Curry and tweet-master Draymond Green. The Miami Heat's mission this season might to become one of the best defensive teams in NBA history.

Since players on a winning team normally believe they are worth more than ones on a lottery team, keeping a championship team together and under the salary cap is a difficult task.

Only when the spring of 2016 rolls around will the players and team have a decent gauge of how realistic the salary demands for the players stand, and even then money may not be the only factor, since personality plays a big factor in whether management wants a disruptive force on their payroll. For now though, the only clarity we have is there will be no clarity until the postseason begins and all parties know better what missing pieces will be needed and how much money those pieces will fetch.