Ira Winderman: Should Heat spring into action at trading deadline and make summer moot?

Pat Riley played the rental market at last year’s trading deadline.

After an eight-month lease, which included the new decor of an Eastern Conference championship banner, Jae Crowder was gone.

That makes the March 25 NBA trading deadline particularly complex this year.

Because this time the tenure for rental tenants could be a matter of weeks.

As Boston Celtics general manager Danny Ainge noted on a recent radio appearance, with so many teams flush with cap space this offseason, obtaining a player on an expiring contract with Bird Rights (allowing a re-signing above the salary cap) will not necessarily mean an upper hand during free agency.

And that matters, because parting with a long-term asset becomes all the more dangerous if a Victor Oladipo, Kyle Lowry or John Collins then walks out the door in July for nothing in exchange.

As Ainge explained on 98.5 The Sports Hub, this is an offseason when short-term answers could lead to long-term voids.

“The free-agent money this year is huge,” he said, with the Heat, for example, poised to harness upwards of $28 million in cap space, depending on those retained. “There may be more free-agent money than there’s been in maybe ever. And the free-agent list, most of the significant players have signed contract extensions leading into this summer.

“So the free-agent list is not hugely great or franchise-changing. Which means a lot of players that are on the free-agent list — and there’s a lot of money out there — there’s more money than there are quality players. And so there’s probably going to be a lot of money spent and overspent or on a lot of free agents. And so that makes it less likely to be able to re-sign players at a fair value.”

In some cases, the reality is of a short-term rental, say a move for expiring contracts such as San Antonio Spurs forwards LaMarcus Aldridge or Rudy Gay, Houston Rockets forward P.J. Tucker or Sacramento Kings forward Nemanja Bjelica. The future hardly would be a consideration with such older veterans.

But with others, give up a draft pick, a young talent or an emerging prospect, and you either could be left empty handed, or have to pay above-market price — perhaps way above market price — to salvage such a deadline deal by re-upping in free agency with the likes of a Lowry, Oladipo or Collins.

And that has to matter to a team such as the Heat, which still owes two future first-round picks, including this year’s non-protected choice. It’s one thing to spend on a Harrison Barnes, a Larry Nance Jr. or even a Nikola Vucevic, should you be so inclined, with the knowledge that the acquired player isn’t going anywhere, already locked into a long-term contract.

But this summer’s market is not the market when the Heat previously acquired the expiring contracts of Shaquille O’Neal and Goran Dragic with the confidence that re-upping was just around the free-agent corner, as proved to be the case.

It didn’t happen with Crowder, despite the good will developed in last summer’s Disney bubble, and it could happen again this time around for different reasons.

In losing Crowder, the Heat concern was FOMO, the fear of missing out on an elite free agent on this summer’s market. Then Anthony Davis, LeBron James and Giannis Antetokounmpo reupped or extended, and the 2021 market, as Ainge noted, became depleted and diluted.

That well could change the approach in coming days.

Now there could be something to be said about locking in for the remainder of the Jimmy Butler era (his contract expires after 2022-23) with a known quantity, someone who could help Butler and Bam Adebayo with the heavy lifting.

And that means being especially careful about, during these intervening days ahead of the trade deadline, parting with a prime trade chip when something more enduring may become available.

The initial notion was a Crowder-type rental would make the most sense again, to preserve a run at at least something close to an A-list free agent.

So rent Gay, Tucker, Aldridge, Nemanja or a similar expiring contract in a trade?

Or could this summer’s reset actually arrive five days after the start of spring, on March 25, with something that endures through the start of next season?

Now or later has always been the question at the NBA trading deadline.

But the way it is setting up, the story this time around could be now or never.