Dave Hyde: Heat will trade Kyle Lowry -- the only question is if it happens by Thursday

Is it just me, or don’t you wish the Miami Heat would go ahead and trade Kyle Lowry?

Their idea to trade him isn’t some state secret. It’s the cold, hard and increasingly welcome truth of their disappointing marriage. It’s coming either at Thursday’s trade deadline or, more likely, over the summer when the larger NBA landscape can be surveyed.

Once, and not too long ago, numbers that defined Lowry were gaudy ones involving points, assists and winning plays. Now his defining number is $29 million.

That’s his annual salary in the second of a three-year deal. It will be salary-cap ballast either to unload for little in return or, cross your fingers, as part of a packaged deal for the elusive whale that team president Pat Riley looks for on the high seas.

Think: Tyler Herro and Lowry and a No. 1 draft pick packaged for Washington’s Bradley Beal in July, if that stirs your heart. Or perhaps the annual idea of Kevin Durant?

That’s why you want the Heat to get to the trade of Lowry. It will tell you what their next chapter might look like when it comes, if it actually does.

Two summers ago, Lowry was the one coming in as an aging whale. Some will say he still is if you’re talking about his shape. In a franchise where playing at a hard-body weight is a central pillar, Lowry arrived as an outsized outsider. He wasn’t going to change after a star’s career, either. Why would he?

That’s not the actual issue with him, either. If there’s a prime lesson over what’s become a disappointing run with Lowry, it’s that sometimes when you sign older players they’re already too old.

Lowry, who will be 37 in March, got old. It happens. Look in the mirror.

There’s no mystery of why his quick, first step disappeared — at least not in the mysterious manner, say, the Heat’s 3-point shooting has disappeared this season. (Someone put out an all-points bulletin to find that. The Heat have shrunk from an NBA-best 37.9% from distance last season to a fourth-worst 33.6% this year.)

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