So, I've avoided writing about the Heat all year long, despite my hatred for them and their star, Mr. LeBron James, aka the man who decided that he would be the first superstar to basically say "I give up winning on my own, I need the help of another top-5 player". The reason I have is that I was scared this would happen all along. The whole Heat saga in this first year is interesting. First, right after LeBron James made his announcement that he intended to take his talents to South Beach (that statement becomes more hilariously dickish and self-aggrandizing each day), everyone responded with a sense of "Holy Shit.... the Heat are going to win the next 10 championships, the NBA's ruined". After a couple weeks that turned into a sense of "Everything will be fine, since they can't afford to pay anyone good besides those three". Finally, before the season started, it returned back to a sense of "Oh, Fuck it. Who am I kidding? They'll win the next 10 titles." That's where things got weird.
With the Bulls never leaving 5th gear all season, and the Celtics reinvigorated for the first 6 months, the Heat became basically the 3rd best team in the East. A more funny thing happened after that, they just kept missing game winning shots time after time, especially LeBron, which led to a real fun round of "Why the hell is LeBron - who is a worse one-on-one creator than Wade taking the ball in EVERY last second play?" and the whole poopoo about the Heat crying after losing to I think it was the Bulls. The Heat were in tatters, capped off by a 30 point loss to the Spurs, and even then, when everyone was celebrating that the Heat were flawed and doomed and that Good trumped Evil, I resisted writing about them. Why? Because I was scared this would happen, that they would turn another gear in the playoffs, that they would prove everyone's initial reactions right. And I hope more now than ever, for the NBA's sake, that I am wrong.
It's not about me not wanting LeBron to win a title after he sheepishly decided that he wasn't good enough to go at it alone, or that he was tired of chasing it with mediocre to barely-all star talent around him. It's an impossible task to win that way, just ask Tim Duncan..... who of course won 4 rings with nary a 2nd-team all-NBA around him. Anyway, forget LeBron. This is about the NBA. Everyone rejoiced that the NBA was more relevant than ever this season, and that was largely true, and it was largely true because everyone gathered collectively to hate Miami. Everyone wanted the Heat to lose, to not win 70 games, and when they were vulnerable, and losing games in the regular season, and when it seemed that the Bulls, Celtics and Lakers were all better than the Heat, the NBA was great. Everyone feared the Heat winning the next 8 titles, and we all saw those fears unrealized throughout the regular season. Sadly, there was a postseason.
All of our worst fears might just come true, and probably will come true. The Heat, after all is said and done, are great and just have more talent than anyone else. The Heat have two of the 5 best players in the NBA, and play good defense. The Heat are the best team, and that kills me, and will kill the NBA. The interest came in because we loved to see the Heat lose, but if the Heat win the title this year, when it was year one, and they didn't have the best chemistry, what is to come later. Interest will definitely not be this high next year if the Heat wins the title this year. It will also validate the bastardly way they came together. Let's just remind you. All sources point to Wade, LeBron and Bosh deciding that they should play together sometime around the 2008 Olympics. They then played coy for two years, and finally, when they were all free agents, had teams FLY OUT AND MAKE FUCKING PRESENTATIONS WITH CELEBRITIES TO BALLWASH THEM INTO COMING TO THEIR CITY!!!!!!!!!! That's so fucking ludicrous I can't really describe it. They rigged the NBA, and then sat back and let each team blow them to persuade them to come to their city when they already decided this shit two years earlier. And now this will be seen as the way to go.
This sort of SuperTeam has never been attempted (other than yearly by the Yankees), and in a sport like basketball, where one or two guys can basically win by themselves, it is the most damaging. The NBA brought this upon themselves, and year one, where the Heat looked fallible, and LeBron was missing game winning shots, and Bosh was crying in the locker room, was all fun, but if that year is capped with a Heat title, the NBA is on watch. Parity is more than alive in the MLB, NHL and NFL. The NBA has never been big on parity, but if the Heat succeed in winning a title, this could become the English Premier League.
