Editor's note: ESPN Insider's Chad Ford breaks down what last season's NBA lottery teams need to do to get to the playoffs. ESPN.com's "Fixer-Upper" series continues with the Miami Heat.

Pat Riley isn't going to take anyone's advice, especially mine. But if you're a Heat fan trying to gauge the relative temperature of your franchise this season, good luck. That gel-plastered coif on Riley's head seems to be the only thing in Miami that never waffles.

Riley went through his toughest trial as a coach last season -- a 36-46 nightmare of a season that had the normally cool floor general pointing fingers at his players, his owner and, at times, himself.

	Pat Riley missed the playoffs for the first time last season.

Forced to cut payroll to avoid the luxury tax, the Heat didn't make an effort to re-sign free agent starters Tim Hardaway, Anthony Mason and Bruce Bowen last year. Instead, Riley assembled a roster of castoffs, signed them to one-year deals and prayed for the best.

For whatever reason, the basketball gods didn't listen. Riley is a coach who demands a huge dose of loyalty from his players. The team's actions in the summer, combined with the multitude of one-year deals, produced an opposite effect. Everyone started playing for himself.

On paper, the Heat had a fairly impressive lineup. Erick Strickland, Eddie Jones, Kendall Gill, Brian Grant and Alonzo Mourning as a group should have grabbed a playoff spot -- on paper. In reality, Mourning was ailing, Grant was wilting, Jones spent the year throwing up bricks, Strickland was throwing up chili dogs and Gill was throwing up DNPs.

Within a month, Riley saw a target on his chest as the pressure mounted to show something, anything resembling a rebuilding plan. He has waffled back and forth (normally between pre- and post-game news conferences) between sticking with his current roster until the summer of 2003 and blowing the team to smithereens.

Riley ended up frozen in a nasty quagmire. His inability to change the Heat's fortunes raised a familiar query.

No one doubts Pat Riley's coaching ability. But does he have the patience to build a team?

Last summer, Riley's building project began as a youth movement, but it quickly turned into a seniors convention when he lost patience before his youngsters even played a game. His most promising athlete, Ricky Davis, was shipped off and rookies Tang Hamilton and Eddie House were forced to carry the banner when LaPhonoso Ellis, Chris Gatling, Gill and Mourning took timeouts for afternoon naps.

Riley was defensive all year as his team kept dropping games. "Rebuilding" became a dirty word in Miami.

"I don't take a step back. Unless somebody has built something, they don't have any clue what it takes to build," Riley said. "All I've ever done is build. I've never gotten credit for building, but I built in Los Angeles. Somebody else can get credit for it, but I built the system and the team, not maybe the personnel but the attitude and characteristics of how we ... play, the motive, all those things.

"I built the same thing in New York, and I'm doing it here ... for the second time. When you're trying to build something, you don't give a damn what anybody thinks. ... They're just trying to criticize. A leader builds in spite of what critics say. I'm a builder, and I will continue to build. I don't care what anybody says. I will not be deterred."

	Butler, a high-octane small forward with an impressive inside/outside game, is certainly a major piece to the Heat's puzzle. But is one talented young player enough?

The building project got a nice boost when Caron Butler fell into the Heat's laps on draft night. Butler, a high-octane small forward with an impressive inside/outside game, is certainly a major piece to the Heat's puzzle. But is one talented young player enough?

Next summer, the team will have just four players under contract -- Jones, Grant, Butler and Anthony Carter. However, Mourning's cap hold, a whopping $20 million, will keep the Heat from being players in the free-agent market unless they quickly sign Mourning to a much smaller deal or renounce him all together.

Will the Heat just ride this season out and hope that adding one more veteran next summer will make them contenders? Or do they blow up this team now, stockpile young talent and then roll the dice in the draft and free-agent market next year? ESPN.com poured over depth charts, trade rumors and salary-cap information and even sought the advice of a few NBA general managers to give you the four things the Heat must do to become a regular staple in the playoffs again.

	Jones

	Grant

Step 1: Make up your mind -- now or later?
Pat Riley has to figure out whether, with one significant move, this team can compete for an NBA championship. If the answer is yes, then the team would be better off using its $4.5 million trade exception and mid-level exception this summer to strike while the iron is hot. Of course, the Heat have waited so long, most of the significant free agents out there aren't worth the dough. So Plan B is to clear enough cap space to offer a full max contract to a free agent next summer. That means the team needs to endure another losing season and get either Eddie Jones' or Brian Grant's contract off the books and replace it with a contract that wil expire this season. Memphis has shown some interest in Jones, but Grant, because of his size, is the more tradeable commodity. He struggled playing alongside Alonzo Mourning last season. If the Heat could land another top prospect and a player in the last year of his deal, they should jump on it. A trade with the Sixers for Derrick Coleman and Samuel Dalembert would clear major cap room for the Heat while allowing them to remain competitive next season.

	Best

Step 2: Give Travis Best a little love.
If the Heat could pull off step one, they'd have a little extra room to make a decent multi-year offer to Travis Best. The team is in dire need of a point guard, and giving Strickland a multi-year contract makes little sense. Given the market, Best isn't going to get big bucks anywhere, and a three-year, $7 million contract won't stop them from making a max offer to a free agent next summer. If that free agent happens to be Jason Kidd, no worries. Best is just as serviceable as a backup.

	Swift

Step 3: Gamble on Stromile Swift.
Stromile Swift has a lot of talent, but it will be wasted in Memphis. With the additions of Pau Gasol, Drew Gooden and Lorenzen Wright over the past year, there isn't the playing time nor the institutional support to make Swift a star. The team has questioned Swift's work ethic (usually a no-no for a Riley player), but Riley has no choice but to gamble here. There was a reason Swift was the No. 2 pick in the draft, and Riley can take a year trying to mine the talent out of him. A combination of LaPhonso Ellis and next year's No. 1 pick (the Grizzlies will lose theirs to Detroit) might be enough to convince Jerry West to pull the trigger. He wants to bring in his own players and can't do that without picks.

Those moves would give the Heat this opening-day roster: