Heat GM describes teams’ post-LeBron withdrawal.

LAS VEGAS — There are no consolation prizes when you lose LeBron James. But that doesn’t mean you can’t offer consolation.

That is exactly what Miami Heat General Manager Andy Elisburg, himself a victim of post-LeBron withdrawal, did earlier this month.

Having dealt with his team’s loss of LeBron James back to the Cleveland Cavaliers in 2014 NBA free agency, Elisburg called Cavaliers General Manager Koby Altman after Cleveland lost James to the Los Angeles Lakers in free agency.

“I called him and said, ‘Well, did the sun come up this morning?’ ” Elisburg told ESPN for a story about the machinations surrounding James’ latest relocation, the third of the AllStar forward’s career. “And he said, ‘Yes, it came up.’ And I said, ‘Well, I just want to let you know it’s going to come up tomorrow, too.’ ”

Elisburg said his empathy came from being in a similar place in 2014 when James left after his four seasons with the Heat, a run that included NBA Finals appearances from 2011 to 2014 and championships in 2012 and 2013.

“The night it happened, I was so angry and emotional I was having chest pains,” Elisburg said. “I was lying in bed and thought I was having a heart attack.”

That, Elisburg said, is when he immediately got proactive in re-signing Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh. The Heat went on to make the playoffs twice in James’ four seasons after leaving South Florida, missed a third trip by a tiebreaker, despite losing Bosh to a life-threatening blood clot condition and Wade for 11⁄2 seasons, first to the Chicago Bulls in 2016 free agency and then to the Cavaliers at the start of this past season, before February’s reunion.

“When it first happened, it was like the scene in ‘Jerry Maguire’ when suddenly all the clients are leaving,” Elisburg told ESPN of those frantic hours in July 2014.

Just as Heat President Pat Riley recently said, Elisburg said it took time for the reasons for that 2014 shift to hit home in a comforting way.

“I got clarity about 4 or 5 o’clock in the morning: It wasn’t about us. It was about what he wanted to do,” said Elisburg, who found that clarity during a head-clearing drive that July 11 night from Miami into Palm Beach County.

For Riley, resolution wasn’t quite as rapid.

“I had two to three days of tremendous anger. I was absolutely livid, which I expressed to myself and my closest friends, Riley said in a book released in April, Ian Thomsen’s “The Soul of Basketball.”

Riley went on to discuss his own acceptance.

“While there may have been some carnage always left behind when he made these kinds of moves, in Cleveland and also in Miami, he did the right thing,” Riley related in that book of James’ 2014 return to his native Northeast Ohio. “I just finally came to accept the realization that he and his family said, ‘You’ll never, ever be accepted back in your hometown if you don’t go back to try to win a title. Otherwise someday you’ll go back there and have the scarlet letter on your back. You’ll be the greatest player in the history of mankind, but back there, nobody’s really going to accept you.’ ”

Elisburg’s advice to Altman was to get back at it.

“I came in the next day around 9, 10 o’clock in the morning, went to the whiteboard, started putting down names and building the roster like we’d always done,” Elisburg said he related to Altman. “You have to realize, it always ends. It never ends the way you want it to end, but it ends, and you have to start again.

“But no matter what, it was an incredible four years. You won a championship, you know? Nothing takes that away.”

Altman told ESPN he was appreciative, having been part of James’ fouryear stay in Cleveland that also included four NBA Finals appearances and the 2016 championship.

“He said he wouldn’t have given up his four years with him for the world, and I feel the same way,” Altman said. “To have four years of the Finals under my belt and the experience of working with the best player maybe ever ... it’s incredible.”

Though it all, the Cavaliers have remained largely inactive since James’ departure, for the moment putting much of the franchise’s future into the development of first-round pick Collin Sexton, the guard out of Alabama. As the Heat did with Bosh, the Cavaliers apparently are considering moving ahead with an approach featuring All-Star forward Kevin Love.

JOHN MCCALL/STAFF FILE PHOTO Andy Elisburg: “The night it happened, I was so angry and emotional I was having chest pains,” Elisburg said. “I was lying in bed and thought I was having a heart attack.”