Is there a more puzzling NBA team than the Miami Heat? In the last two plus seasons, no team – not even Isiah’s Knicks – have made more national headlines for their roster moves and performance.

Let’s recap. First, legendary coach Pat Riley left the bench for the front office during training camp in 2003.After a horrid start to the season, the Heat soared into the playoffs, where they made an an impressive run. A few months later, they traded for Shaquille O’Neal and went on to win 59 games, losing in the final minutes of Game 7 of the Eastern Conference Finals. Then, this off-season, they engineered a four-team multiple player deal to acquire noted ballhogs Antoine Walker and Jason Williams.

One of the motives of the Walker trade was to fortify the team in case O’Neal missed more time with injuries. Now that’s foresight. Shaq suffered a sprained ankle in the second game of the season when he landed on Ron Artest’s foot in a loss to the Pacers, and is out for another few weeks.

In O’Neal’s absence, the Heat have alternated poor performances with solid ones. Last Tuesday, they needed overtime to dispatch the Hornets in Miami, then turned around and ended Philadelphia’s six-game winning streak. On Sunday, they handed dreadful Toronto its first win of the season. If drama efficiency quotient was a real stat, rather than something I just invented, the Heat would probably have set records by now.

Wednesday’s 100-79 drubbing of Portland left Miami at 7-4 and atop the Southeast Division. But this is far from what many observers expected. In a way, Shaq’s absence – so long as it’s brief – may actually help the team. It makes tonight’s game with the Mavericks and Monday’s matchup with the Knicks into a test to see if the rebuilt Heat have worked out their kinks yet.

If not, they had better get cracking, because this team is built to win now. Shaq is 33 and increasingly injury prone; he’s missed 15 games in each of the last four seasons and, depending how quickly his ankle heels, he may have missed 15 by Christmas this year.

Williams is 30, an age when point guard skills tend to decline. His backup, Gary Payton, is 37. Walker is 29. Dwyane Wade, 23, is still on the upside of his career arc, but nearly every other member of the Heat rotation is on the back nine career-wise. Two years from now, when Wade will be at the peak phase of his career, most of his current teammates will be either retired or barely hanging on.

Last season, when Shaq missed several games with a deep thigh bruise, the Heat lineup had been playing together for five months. This year’s team had barely five days before losing their big man. With half of the eight-man rotation – Williams, Walker, Payton, and former Memphis forward James Posey – being new to the team, it’s only natural that the Heat would take longer to gel than a team with relatively stable personnel from last season. Most of the Heat’s early inconsistency can be attributed to acclimation.

Despite the fact that the newcomers have struggled with their roles in coach Stan Van Gundy’s attack, a clear picture of the Heat offense is emerging.

Williams, long one of the NBA’s flashiest point guards, is putting up numbers more consistent with a two-guard. His assists are down dramatically (4.1 a game this season compared with a career average of 6.8), but his long-range shooting has improved from 31.7% to 40.4% from behind the arc.

Continuing a trend he began last season, Wade has taken over more of the ballhandling responsibilities, handing out 7.6 assists per game. Wade’s ability to do nearly everything but hit three-pointers has also created opportunities for Walker, who is launching 6.3 treys a game and hitting a career high 38.1% of them. The rest of his game is off, though, particularly his rebounds and free-throw attempts (and somehow he’s hitting only 43.5% from the charity stripe).

Walker has often been criticized for launching too many three-balls, so he obviously enjoying Van Gundy’s more shooter-friendly gameplan. Posey is also taking and hitting more from downtown, and Payton is shooting more threes than at anytime since his last full season in Seattle, four years ago.

Notice a trend there? Once the big man returns, the Heat will base their offense on O’Neal and Wade playing a two-man game, with two other teammates spotting up behind the arc to punish opponents who sag in the middle and/or double team. It’s a new wrinkle in the Heat offense now that they have consistent and potent threats from long range. The Heat are averaging five more three-point attempts a game this season. When Shaq returns, that number is likely to increase.

Thus far, Miami’s overall numbers are a mixed bag. They rank ninth in Offensive Efficiency (points scored per 100 possessions) and 16th in Defensive Efficiency. Their low ranking owes mostly to forcing only 14.6 turnovers a game, third worst in the league. But continuity issues may be to blame – the only teams with fewer takeaways, the Clippers and the Rockets, have each missed a key starter for nearly half of their games. This will hinder the speed of double teams and communication between defenders, a key in forcing mistakes.

Although the Heat have shown a fondness for it, there is little reason for drama and almost every reason for patience with this year’s squad. Given the design of the offense, O’Neal’s return will elevate what is now a productive unit into a potent attack – maybe the most dangerous in the Eastern Conference. If the Heat manage to settle back into the league’s top 10 defensively, they may not match last year’s win total, but they certainly will stand an excellent chance of making the Finals before their narrow window closes.

mjohnson@nysun.com