The Miami Heat now rejoin NBA free agency already in progress. Because Pat Riley’s “whale” has migrated elsewhere. And because his team’s big fish still remains to be lured.

With Oklahoma City Thunder free-agent forward Kevin Durant announcing Monday on The Players Tribune that he will be joining the Golden State Warriors, the Heat are expected to take their remaining salary-cap resources and turn toward franchise mainstay Dwyane Wade.

A longshot from the start of the process, Riley and several other members of the Heat front office made their pitch to Durant in The Hamptons in New York on Sunday and then waited like the rest of the league for Durant’s announcement on the website where he is a deputy publisher.

In his piece on the website, Durant wrote, “This has been by far the most challenging few weeks in my professional life. I understood cognitively that I was facing a crossroads in my evolution as a player and as a man, and that it came with exceptionally difficult choices. What I didn’t truly understand, however, was the range of emotions I would feel during this process.”

Durant took a reported two-year deal that includes a player option, which allows him to explore free agency again next summer, when the NBA salary cap is expected to take another quantum leap.

And, with that, the Heat regained the ability to move on to what now matters most.

With $19 million in remaining cap space and the ability to create as much as $25 million as a starting point for a new Wade contract, the Heat are expected to meet the demands of their All-Star guard and then round out their roster with minimal signings from there.

Free agency hardly was a washout for the Heat, with Riley reeling back his primary target, when center Hassan Whiteside accepted a maximum four-year, $98 million package last Friday, also announcing his agreement on The Players Tribune.

A source close to that process said Whiteside would have been amenable to lowering that figure if it allowed the Heat to add Durant. Instead, Whiteside’s 2016-17 salary will slot in at $22 million, making him the first NBA player to jump from the veteran minimum to the league maximum in one year.

In the interim between the decision by Whiteside and the decision by Durant, the Heat lost both of the starting forwards from their playoff lineup that went to a Game 7 of the Eastern Conference finals against the Toronto Raptors, with Luol Deng accepting a four-year, $17 million contract from the Los Angeles Lakers and Joe Johnson a two-year, $22 million deal from the Utah Jazz.

In addition, the Heat, starting Thursday, will have three days to decide whether to match the four-year, $50 million offer sheet the Brooklyn Nets plan to extended to guard Tyler Johnson. Should the Heat bypass matching, they would add more than $1 million to their current cap space. Should the Heat match the offer for Johnson, their current salary-cap space total would be reduced by $4 million, creating pressure to close a deal with Wade.

Wade earned $20 million on a one-year contract last season. Among the mechanisms that would increase the Heat’s salary-cap space would be a trade of forward Josh McRoberts, who is scheduled to earn $5.8 million this season.

No matter the remainder of the Heat’s offseason maneuvering, the key to fielding a competitive team is the status of power forward Chris Bosh, who has missed the second half of each of the past two seasons due to blood clots. Word from a source updated on the situation is that the hope remains that Bosh can return once he is six months removed from additional concerns.

With Bosh back and Wade re-signed, the Heat would be able to field a competitive starting lineup of Whiteside, Bosh, small forward Justise Winslow, Wade and point guard Goran Dragic. Dragic’s name had been in play for a potential trade had the Heat landed Durant.

The concern, even with Bosh and Wade back in the starting lineup, would be filling out a bench that stands to lose Tyler Johnson and currently stands only with McRoberts and neophyte guards Josh Richardson and Briante Weber.

The Heat since the free-agent departure of forward LeBron James during the 2014 offseason have had uneven results on the secondary free-agent market, adding Danny Granger, McRoberts and Shannon Brown in the 2014 offseason and then Gerald Green and Amar’e Stoudemire last summer. Both Brown and Granger are currently out of the game, with Green and Stoudemire remaining on the free-agent market.

In many ways, Durant’s post on The Players Tribune was similar to James’ decision to leave the Cavaliers and join the Heat during 2010 free agency.

In his Monday essay, Durant wrote, “I am also at a point in my life where it is of equal importance to find an opportunity that encourages my evolution as a man: moving out of my comfort zone to a new city and community which offers the greatest potential for my contribution and personal growth.”

As with James in 2010 with the Heat, the Warriors already have recently won a championship (in 2015), while Durant is seeking his first title.

As for the current rendition of the Heat, with an anticipated return of Wade, who has been linked to bids from the Denver Nuggets and Milwaukee Bucks, Riley’s team would be limited to a $2.9 million salary-cap exception allowed to teams that had been operating with salary-cap space, as well as the ability to sign any additional player to the veteran-minimum salary.

Forward Udonis Haslem, who, like Wade, has spent all 13 of his NBA seasons with the Heat, is believed to be seeking the Heat’s $2.9 million exception.

Formal signings are not allowed until Thursday’s end of the NBA moratorium, with team officials prohibited from commenting on such players in the interim.

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