Tank would not have been empty for Heat

MIAMI — The irony is this could’ve been the time, if ever there was a season for the Miami Heat to covertly capitulate.

A full-scale tank? No, the Heat would never go there, a flat-out, from-the-start commitment to lottery odds no matter the unseemliness of it all.

Remember, this is a team that wouldn’t even do it at 11-30, instead insisting on the good fight back to 30-11 over the second half of 2016-17. As if karma was on their side, the reward in that year’s lottery was Bam Adebayo, hardly a consolation prize.

But this season, the door was opened by Tyler Herro appearing in only 11 games before the All-Star break, with injuries ruining any hope of continuity over the first 50-plus games, with Adebayo dealing with the type of ailments that have had many leading men living on lottery lane coaxed into shutting it down — from Jaren Jackson Jr. to Domantas Sabonis to Anthony Davis.

And all the factors making it a prudent Heat approach also were in place:

— A loaded top of the draft that could deliver elite, star-level talent deep into the lottery.

— The dynamic that the Heat were without their own first-round pick last year (that went to Oklahoma City) and could be without their first-round pick next year (which could be headed to Charlotte).

— And the reality that this Heat roster for months has not shown the ability to contend for homecourt advantage in any round, the seeming minimum requirement for any team that in any way fancies itself as a contender.

So why the debate now?

Because never has the reality of tanking been more pronounced, at least publicly. The covert has grown overt, withx the Jazz and Pacers penalized before the All-Star break, Commissioner Adam Silver addressing it during the All-Star break, and NBA ownership types Mark Cuban, who still owns a portion of the Mavericks, and Mat Ishbia, the owner of the Suns, each making it a talking point on social media, with Cuban in favor, Ishbia against.

For the Heat, such has long been a moral stance, a seemingly unbreakable vow of Pat Riley to the team’s following of (cue the Culture): “The hardest working, best conditioned, most professional, unselfish, toughest, meanest, nastiest team in the NBA.”

Never has Riley ascended to the lottery podium (with a scowling Alonzo Mourning instead in his place). Draft parties for the Heat? Sure. Lottery parties? The LeBron year, but that’s about it.

Talk to those who have been with the Heat for decades and the insistence is at no point was the lottery prioritized during the start. (In the formative years, such visits were a given, even with Ron Rothstein attempting to push every button possible.)

Not even when Mourning was felled by kidney disease, when Tim Hardaway could manage little more than a limp, when Dwyane Wade regrettably was allowed to depart in free agency to the Bulls.

But there have been times when reality intervened and a course correction was made.

As in 2008, when Wade’s left knee simply couldn’t keep giving, and then when Udonis Haslem’s left’s ankle gave out.

Enter Blake Ahearn, Stephane Lasme, Kasib Powell, and an additional ensemble cast that couldn’t.

No, the Heat were not, are not, will not go down such a road again, not when roster continuity is so essential for seasons ahead, especially when one of those upcoming seasons will require the forwarding of a first-round pick to the Hornets.

But there could have been a turn to youth, a course adjustment now far less likely after the passing of the Feb. 5 NBA trading deadline.

Had moves been made then for draft capital in place of potential free agents Andrew Wiggins and Norman Powell, it likely would have been easier to slow play it with Herro and Adebayo, instead featuring the youth of, say, a lineup of Kel’el Ware, Nikola Jovic, Pelle Larsson, Jaime Jaquez Jr. and Kasparas Jakucionis.

That, in turn, would have allowed the Heat to fully explore their pipeline, hardly draw the type of Silver scrutiny that Utah and Indiana did with their lineup shenanigans, and removed the pressure from Erik Spoelstra of trying to win now rather than develop for later.