A press conference with Pat Riley can go more than 30 minutes without anyone asking about him.

Riley offered another "this-needs-to-be-the-year" statement about Wright on Wednesday.

He also noted, when speaking of small forward, that "of all the players we have at that position, he really is the most skilled player."

The other players are James Jones, Yakhouba Diawara and, I suppose, Jamario Moon -- even though RIley was non-commital about giving Moon a qualifying offer. (Moon is a restricted free agent.)

Then there's Michael Beasley... if the Heat decides to keep and develop him, and if Udonis Haslem is still here.

Riley summoned the names of James Worthy and Anthony Mason as guys who came into the league as power forwards but played small forward for him. He could have added Antoine Walker to that list.

The Heat has had three solid small forwards in its history: Glen Rice, Jamal Mashburn, Caron Butler. Otherwise, the organization has tended to mix and match. It treats it as more of a perimeter position (see Bruce Bowen, Eddie Jones, Dan Majerle), rather than a power position, unless it doesn't have another option.

What would you like to see the Heat do with the spot?

(Also, here's a Dave Hyde column that advances what I wrote in the newspaper the other day. We agree on most of this, as you may have seen in my prior Heat blog. Again, my suspicion is that some other NBA teams, including Toronto,?will be shopping their 2010 free agents a year early. So that may force the Heat's hand.)

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