So on Monday, in the first team meeting of 2006-07, Riley broke out an 11-minute video showcasing the best moments of the Heat's title march last season. The message needed no deciphering: He simply wanted to remind the defending NBA champions how good those moments felt a year ago.

``I think they got right back into the spirit again of the whole thing,'' Riley said. ``While it was a special time, that was last year. Now, we have to move on.''

That process begins in earnest Tuesday, when the Heat hold their first two practices of the new campaign. Miami will play its first pre-season game Oct. 10 in San Juan against the Detroit Pistons.

Miami has nearly its entire roster back from the title-winning club, meaning Riley _ also the team president _ didn't exactly have an overwhelming number of Heat-related decisions to make this past summer, other than designing the championship ring.

So instead of revamping the roster, as he did in each of the previous two off-seasons, his big summertime chore was remodelling the locker-room and some of the surrounding areas.

The work got rave reviews from players.

``I might just bring me a sleeping bag and hang out. ... Championship team, we get treated like champions,'' forward Udonis Haslem said.

Each player's locker has a small replica NBA championship trophy, and an image of the gold trophy also is the centrepiece of the room's new carpet _ which, as an added bonus, is ``much softer,'' centre Shaquille O'Neal said.

New flat-screen televisions have been added around the complex, the hall leading from the room has been redesigned and turned into a tribute area dubbed ``Championship Alley,'' and the seating for players was replaced, too. Even the hot tubs are new.

``Best locker-room in the league, hands down,'' finals MVP Dwyane Wade said.

Much like with the first-meeting video retrospective, Riley's mission behind the cosmetic changes isn't hard to figure out, either.

He said he devised the plan when he drove into the arena for the championship parade on June 23 and found what he saw that day to be ``dull'' and ``duller.''

``What I wanted them to come back to, what I wanted to come back to was a championship locker room facility,'' Riley said. ``All the images that they'll see and all the changes that they'll see, they'll know why they was made. They've got to own it. They've got to be responsible for it.''

Yet at the same time, Riley doesn't expect all the championship remembrances will be distracting, either.

His intention is that they serve simply as a reminder of what was, and with some luck, what might be again.

``We earned a world championship and we're proud as hell of it and we're going to defend it,'' Riley said. ``We're not going to look back with nostalgia about it. That's been won, it's been experienced, it's been enjoyed. And now we're back to work. That's what happens with every championship team. The summer ends.''

Notes: Point guard Jason Williams, who had knee surgery to relieve tendinitis over the summer, said he doesn't expect to be playing until mid-November, meaning he's likely to miss at least a half-dozen games and makes veteran Gary Payton the presumptive starter for opening night Oct. 31 against Chicago. ... And with Williams out for a while, the Heat signed point guard Antonio Burks on Monday. Burks played in 57 games, all but one as a reserve, with Memphis last season. ... Wade said he'll have another MRI soon on his injured right hand; an MRI taken over the summer apparently was not administered properly, he said. While it was widely reported that he had an injured wrist, Wade said top of his right hand is actually what's bothering him, but he doesn't believe the issue is serious.