Ira Winderman: Think tank? Heat's Kevin Love has thoughts on previous and current realities.

INDIANAPOLIS — Veteran Heat big man Kevin Love could see this coming, this dominant start by the Cleveland Cavaliers, because he was part of how it came together — the part that required patience, perspective and pain,

Rising from the ashes of a LeBron James departure can be one of the most daunting challenges in sports. Of that, the Cavaliers of the early 2010s were more than familiar, as were the Heat of the mid 2010s.

So amid the Cavaliers’ run of early-season perfection, Love was asked this past week to reflect and compare how a pair of franchises handled post-LeBron in decidedly different design.

“Obviously there’s a way of going about your own business,” said Love, then with the Cavaliers and now with the Heat. “There’s a certain different ethos; there’s a certain way of doing things.”

The Cavaliers’ way was a race to the bottom, one that had Love in tow, with Cleveland 19-63, 19-46 and 22-50 in the first three seasons after James’ 2018 departure to the Los Angeles Lakers, with two of those seasons shortened by the pandemic.

“It’s a miserable way of life,” Love said.

But also can be a productive way.

By utterly bottoming out, the Cavaliers tanked themselves to be in position to draft Collin Sexton, Darius Garland, Isaac Okoro and Evan Mobley. That cultivated not only a base for the current success but also a trade chip that helped land Donovan Mitchell.

“Cleveland was able to endure,” Love said. “In this league, you’ve got to draft well. You’ve got to acquire assets. They certainly did that, made some great trades and here they sit. So it’s amazing to see. They’re playing really well.”

To a degree, it is the talent amassed during the tankathon that eventually displaced Love from the Cavaliers’ rotation, led to his February 2023 Cleveland buyout that led to his Heat arrival.

Now, amid yet another uneven Heat start to a season, Love was asked about the uniquely NBA notion of having to fall down to eventually rise again,

The difference, he said, is as stark as Cleveland and Miami winters.

What ultimately proved essential for the Cavaliers, he said, shouldn’t be as necessary for the Heat.

“When you’re with the Miami Heat, and me having been on the outside, I know what they’re about,” he said during this ongoing six-game trip that concludes Sunday against the Indiana Pacers. “When I came in, I was told it’s win and win now. Here, it’s win always, right?

“So you can look at a team like Cleveland, you look at a team like Oklahoma City, who have been at the bottom and acquired assets, and now have a long runway to have a lot of success. But is that the answer? I don’t know if I’m equipped to say.

“But I think with teams like that, the market, it throws in a whole different variable, because Miami is a place a lot of players want to play and attracts a lot of stars naturally, being such a great city and a great organization. And then you have teams like Oklahoma City that are smaller markets, that you have to draft well, you have to have those assets and when the time is right you press go.”

What Love said can’t be lost in go-bust thinking is that without draft success, tanking comes with no guarantees.

To that end, he pointed to the Cavaliers’ struggles when James departed for the Heat in 2010, when prime draft picks were utilized by the Cavaliers on the likes of Anthony Bennett and Dion Waiters.

Mostly, Love said to be careful for what you wish for, because constant and abject losing takes a toll, took a toll on the Cavaliers’ roster before James’ return and after his departure.

For the Heat, such thought does not appear in the cards, no sign of willingness to put Bam Adebayo or Tyler Herro through such misery even if Jimmy Butler decides to move on or is moved on.

Love said that’s good, because in that case, misery does not love company, recalling a conversation with Draymond Green during the 2019-20 season, when the Golden State Warriors careened to 15-50 amid injuries to Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson,

“I had a talk with Draymond about it, when Klay and Steph were both hurt,” Love recalled. “We talked about it, how we were going from all these Finals straight, and kind of went from the penthouse to the outhouse in a way. LeBron left, I re-signed, and we were again fighting for those draft spots, which was a tough thing to do and you have to be able to endure it and see the long game. But when you’re in it, sometimes you lose sight of that.”

To their credit, if that is the correct phrasing, the Cavaliers played that long game, which has Love feeling good for his former team.

“We had great people in the front office, still am very close with ownership and their family and a lot of guys that I played with,” Love said. “I left a really good locker room and they were ascending to kind of where they are now.”