The trading deadline is not until Feb. 21. So figure that as the finish line for personnel moves for the season.

The starting line? That figures to be this coming Saturday.

Under the collective bargaining agreement, players signed as free agents or draft picks in the offseason cannot be traded before "the later of three months following the date on which such contract was signed or Dec. 15."

That makes Saturday the first time more than 100 offseason signees become eligible for trades.

For teams looking to tinker, Dec. 15, in essence, becomes the start of the trading season. The Heat certainly could (should?) be among those teams.

As Heat General Manager Randy Pfund said last month: "We are very limited now in who we can trade, there's only four guys. That makes it very, very difficult to do anything in a trade, until we get into mid-December."