Quick tank job may be beneficial for Heat

Dolphins won’t (and shouldn’t)

MIAMI — The two biggest teams in town denied on Wednesday they were tanking, would be tanking or even own an aquarium, scuba or dunk tank. That this is the prime topic of conversation speaks to the putrid status of South Florida sports right now.

Here’s a quick comeback, too:

The Dolphins shouldn’t tank.

The Heat, especially by this point, should.

The Dolphins are in a sport that doesn’t guarantee any franchisechanging reward for tanking. The Heat are. The Dolphins sit at the start of an offseason demanding smart decisions, not a simplistic dumb one. The Heat are in the final weeks of a season that’s broken.

The Dolphins have revealed enough of their cards, starting with a desire to re-sign cornerback Xavien Howard and tackle Ja’Wuan James, to make you realize the initial fears of a full-on, lose-for-winning’ssake tank job like the Cleveland Browns or Philadelphia 76ers isn’t the plan.

The plan is to try what Jimmy Johnson did his first year in 1996 or Nick Saban did in 2005. Re-order the salary cap. Put full faith in the draft. Realize a serious rebuilding job is in order to build a contender. If that means you ride Gus Frerotte at quarterback for a rebuilding year like Saban did, so be it. They still went 9-7.

The Dolphins aren’t a free-agency from contending. Good for them for not pretending they are.

“We’re not trying to tank or lose every game,” Dolphins general manager Chris Grier said Wednesday at the NFL scouting combine. “But we’re going to build it right and see how it plays out.”

The Heat are another matter in another sport. If losing at home on Monday to

league-worst Phoenix showed just how close the Heat are to the bottom, playing league-best Golden State on Wednesday — even with their valiant effort in a 126-125 win — reflected how absurdly far they are from the top talent-wise.

The question isn’t whether the glass is half full or half empty, if you’re a Heat fan looking at a remaining, top-heavy schedule.

The question is if there’s even a glass. They entered Wednesday with a 21.6 percent chance of even making the playoffs. Everyone’s for a good fight against the odds when the payoff is more than a five-game series in the first round.

The Heat won’t tank, of course, because team president Pat Riley said so on Wednesday.

“It’s absolutely essential that they grow with experience and, not only experience on the playing time but that they get to the playoffs,’’ Riley said on Heat TV. “Something that can get them to another level. You make your mark when you get to the playoffs.

“I thought Justise [Winslow] last year against Philly, even though we didn’t win, there was a moment where he thought, ‘OK, I can play at this level with these guys.’ ”

The larger truth: Winslow and Josh Richardson, the Heat’s best young talents, would be the eighth and ninth men for Golden State. You can pretend they have a chance to be special, but they’re role players on a great team.

If the idea is how to build a team, the only way for a Heat team handcuffed by bad contracts is through the draft. They entered Wednesday’s games picking 10th. That won’t bring a franchise-changing talent. They also have a 3 percent chance of the top pick, 10 percent of a top-three pick and 14 percent chance of a topfive pick.

But look what some selective losing could do. The Heat are a couple of games behind Memphis and Washington sitting in sixth place. Reach there and the Heat would have not just a better pick but a 9 percent chance for the No. 1 pick, a 28 percent chance for a top-three pick and a 37 percent shot for a top-five pick.

So the Heat should tank. The Dolphins shouldn’t.

And someone say a prayer for the South Florida sports fan that these are the prime topics around our prime teams.

Dave Hyde