As I’m writing this, we still don’t know where LeBron James is going to play this season, what will be his age 42 season in the NBA. As unlikely as it might seem, maybe LeBron still doesn’t know, either.

But I know what I want. And what I want is for him to take his talents back to South Beach.

I want him with Giannis and Bam and Pat Riley in Miami. It makes the whole thing better — not just in the Eastern Conference, but for the whole league — if the Heat get better. That doesn’t necessarily mean better than the Knicks, we saw how the Knicks lit up the whole thing, and not just here.

But if LeBron does go back to Miami, if the new Big 3 there becomes him and Giannis Antetokounmpo and Bam Adebayo, then what we really get back as soon as he does is this, in lights:

We get Knicks vs. Heat back.

Even when LeBron was there the first time, and for what feels like far too short a time, Knicks vs. Heat didn’t come close to being what it was like back in the ’90s after Pat Riley took his own talents to South Beach after Patrick Ewing had missed that finger roll in Game 7 against the Pacers at the Garden. It wasn’t Charlie Ward getting into it under the basket with P.J. Brown, a fight that cost the Knicks a shot at the championship I believe they would have won that year. It wasn’t Jeff Van Gundy hanging on to Alonzo Mourning’s leg that time like a man hanging on to the side of a speeding train. It wasn’t Allan Houston on a Sunday afternoon in old Miami arena, making the runner that enabled the Knicks as a No. 8 seed to not just beat the No. 1 seeded Heat in a deciding Game 5 that remains one of the most famous playoff games of them all for the Knicks, even now, and after what we just saw.

They didn’t just beat the Heat that day. They beat Coach Riles, still working the sideline at the time.

LeBron and Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh against the Knicks never rose to that level of, well, heat. It wasn’t like it was the day Riley came back to the Garden for the first time as coach of the Heat and got booed as big as anybody ever did there. You saw the kid who had grown up in Schenectady, N.Y., in that moment — not the Armani Riles, or the Showtime Riles — standing in there and waving his arms and telling Knicks fans to go ahead and let him have it, which they sure did. Like he was sticking that jaw out.

There have been other rivalries for the New York Knicks, of course. There was Knicks vs. Reggie and the Pacers in the old days, and then Knicks vs. Tyrese Haliburton in the past few years, shaking down all that old thunder, and an awful lot of bad memories and bad feelings, too. And without a doubt, Knicks vs. Celtics is forever. But there was never anything better than those years in the late ’90s when Knicks vs. Heat absolutely and without question turned into the Yankees against the Red Sox.

LeBron might not bring that kind of heat if he goes back. But he would bring a lot. At a time when the Knicks have turned themselves, the whole team, into this kind of star, LeBron still remains the sport’s biggest star. As he is about to make one last move — to the Heat, back to Cleveland, up the California coast to Steph Curry — the only thing you can compare it to, for an athlete well into what should be his twilight, is Tom Brady making that move to the Bucs.

Without question, you can make a case for him to go home — again — to Cleveland. You can see the allure of he and Steph teaming up in the late innings, even in a conference that has Victor Wembanyama and still has the Oklahoma City Thunder, for one last ride, and roar. Maybe LeBron is even intrigued at the prospect of playing with Jaylen Brown and Joel Embiid in Philadelphia, and jump-starting the rivalry between the 76ers and the Knicks.

Wherever he goes, even in a World Cup summer, he has now made himself the story of the summer, for as long as it takes for Decision 2.0. He has been famous in this country since he was in high school, and suddenly feels as famous as ever now that he is leaving the Lakers, the third NBA team that he led to a title.

Does adding LeBron to Giannis and Bam automatically mean the Heat could take down the Knicks. After what we just saw from Jalen Brunson and them? Come on. But the Heat would immediately become the top contender, at least in the Eastern Conference. And if you love basketball, and nobody loves it more than New York does, who wouldn’t want to see the Knicks go toe-to-toe with LeBron four times in the upcoming season? Again: Come on.

What did happen in the ’90s happened a long time ago. But not only does New York City love its basketball, it is also a capital of old grudges. Pat Riley is 81 now, and still getting after it as a Hall of Fame executive, because he just got Giannis to sign on with him. Erik Spoelstra has become a Hall of Fame coach working for Riley. But in the hearts and minds of Knick fans, the Heat will always be Pat Riley, whom those fans loved and lost.

He and LeBron teamed up once before. There was a Big 3 down there once before. Could happen again. Riley would get LeBron back. We would get Knicks-Heat back. Might not happen. Be great if it did.