Q: Ira, I and a few others (devoted Heat fans) have been ringing the slow-down bell all season. I've been writing to you as early as October, screaming, pleading and begging for a realistic look at this NBA season. During the 13-game win streak I wrote in comparing it to our first American Express card approval and home equity credit-line increase. We went crazy buying jet skies, plastic surgery and joined the Trump kids in Aspen. The bill is about to come due, and as I feared for my beloved Heat, we don't have the first payment. Limping into the playoffs in this condition is the equivalent of paying the first payment with a check-cashing loan. We are headed for bankruptcy. Everyone has glossed over what this organization really needed. Pride is the first thing to go. We are a great franchise. I never doubt our ability to put a winning team together even in the worst possible situations. But what we needed this one time, this one season was to bottom out completely and rebuild in the new NBA free-agent and collective-bargaining landscapes. We needed as many draft picks as we could find and we need to regroup through the draft. We should've been planning for this the moment the first blood clot report on Chris Bosh. I fear it will come too late. I love my Heat, but we are headed for a long, long march onto the treadmill of mediocrity. -- Marcus, Washington.