Here is your new core nucleus, Heat fans, the triumvirate to make this rebuilding process happen with the speed of time-lapse photography:
RANDOM EVIDENCE OF A CLUTTERED MIND
Selecting Kansas State's Michael Beasley helped the Heat earn the only A+ draft grade from ESPN.com, and the choice has earned equivalent high approval marks in fan polls.
IN MY OPINION
The worst team in the NBA stopped being that in a jubilant instant Thursday night. Younger, better, more fun, more exciting and an immediate playoff contender is what the Miami Heat became with one draft pick and two fairly magical words:
IN MY OPINION
The brain bounces like a basketball inside the cranium, rattled over what the Heat might or might not do with its overall No. 2 draft pick Thursday night. Miami leads the NBA in rumors and speculation while Pat Riley huffs and bluffs and betrays not a single discernable intention.
IN MY OPINION
There is something called the Citrus Series trophy. It is an engraved crystal bowl with five fake oranges in it, and it goes to whichever team wins the annual intrastate series between the Florida Marlins and the Tampa Bay Rays.
RANDOM EVIDENCE OF A CLUTTERED MIND
Perhaps the worst kept secret in sports history was the Tampa Bay Lightning selecting Steven Stamkos with the No. 1 overall pick in the NHL Entry Draft on Friday night.
IN MY OPINION
Miami Hurricanes baseball players and coaches trudged wordlessly off their charter bus and crunched across gravel toward their home dugout late Thursday afternoon, their feelings just like the stadium they walked into.
IN MY OPINION
It seemed like a bit much, didn't it? Be honest. Tiger Woods' noticeable limping and grimacing during the U.S. Open looked like it might be something of a show for the cameras, maybe a thespian flair for the dramatic.
DOLPHINS
Doug Betters recalls a doctor telling him bluntly and early on how most people in his situation face a decision: ' `You either blow your brains out,' '' Betters told it Monday, ' `or you move forward.' ''
RANDOM EVIDENCE OF A CLUTTERED MIND
It might be the greatest American mystery since Watergate's ''Deep Throat'' in the 1970s. Who is ``Joe?'' Who is the Marlins fan identified only as that who claims to have caught Ken Griffey Jr.'s milestone 600th home run ball but is being sued by another Marlins fan who claims ''Joe'' swiped it from him? (Hey, look on the bright side. At least it refutes those who suggest the Marlins have no fans.)
UNIVERSITY OF MIAMI BASEBALL
Lois Kerr is in a silver Chrysler Town & Country minivan barreling across the American Heartland toward Omaha, Neb. A tam o'shanter-style knit cap rests on her head. It is orange and green, as anybody who knows her might have guessed.
IN MY OPINION
You would have been branded a blasphemer or a plain idiot had you uttered the following words anywhere in South Florida at the time of the trade last December: ``The Marlins will not miss Miguel Cabrera or Dontrelle Willis.''
IN MY OPINION
They know Jim Morris around Omaha, Neb., by now. When you've been out there 10 times in 14 years for the College World Series -- this week makes it 11 in 15 -- you're close to being an honorary citizen.
RANDOM EVIDENCE OF A CLUTTERED MIND
B ill Parcells, the Dolphins' vice president in charge of alienating Jason Taylor, this week ended months of not speaking with the media to explain his excessively reported rift with Taylor over the player skipping the team's offseason conditioning and practices in favor of Dancing With The Stars.
IN MY OPINION
It's the only thing on the plate at Mark Light Field this weekend. Two teams could not be hungrier, but only one gets to eat. Omaha stakes.
IN MY OPINION
The colt Big Brown angles this week to win horse racing's first Triple Crown in 30 years, and probably will, and it would be a terrific feel-good story but for one persisting little matter.
IN MY OPINION
Randy Shannon is used to seeing kids this age, 19, 20 years old, on their backs in pain. Usually it's on a football field, maybe after one too many wind sprints in practice has sucked the air from a player's chest. Maybe it's when one of his Miami Hurricanes is wincing and grasping at a wrenched knee.
In the past few days I have received nearly 200 angry e-mails from fans of mixed martial arts fighting. Since when have inmates had access to computers?
CBS-TV lends the fraud-sport grandly calling itself Mixed Martial Arts the false imprimatur of legitimacy by this week inaugurating a new prime-time series, EliteXC Saturday Night Fights -- with Miami's own inexplicably popular Kimbo Slice the first headlining act.
IN MY OPINION
The Marlins entered the new week with the second-best record and second-biggest division lead in all of baseball as this unlikeliest of seasons neared its one-third mark. The only team with a better record and bigger lead was the team from Arizona that Florida just swept.
