Long Live Zo

Jonnylons waxes poetic about Zo’s career and jersey retiring; oh, and the fact that he forgot to catch the ceremony! I am sure he saw the SportsCenter highlight though. — Miami Heat Wave

Ranking the Heat Rookies

Michael Wallace ranks the Rookies, including the coach; I have it as Chalmers, Beasley then Spoelstra, only because of the Dallas misstep where the coach didn’t call a time out at the end; I was at the game and was furious! — On the Beat: Miami Heat

Trimming trees on an MD-88?

Sure the title doesn’t make sense now, but give this list of quick hits a read, and you will surely understand; although I did not… — Sun Sentinel - Miami Heat

MJ should get his own day at the hall of fame

I agree with Scoop here; the other inductees will be forgotten about, because MJ is getting in. And these are tough players to forget about. — ESPN

Introducing Schoene

A very nifty player comparison tool, with a horrible name; but hey, I will put my stamp on any system that says D-Wade is the current player most similar to Jordan! — Basketball Prospectus

My case begins with one simple fact, Dwayne Wade. LeBron and the Cavs did it…well what few Cavs there were, and we’ve already established this season that Wade is just as good as LeBron, and just as able to shoulder the burden of an entire team when given a chance to do so. The Heat always have a chance to win a game with Dwayne in the lineup. The man can take over a game so completely that opposing fans just sit and stare in awe at what he can do. You need a rebound, he’s one of the better rebounding guards. How about an assist or two? He’s not only the leading shooting guard at 7.5 per game, he’s also 8th overall on the list. How about some defense? He’s second overall in steals per game, and leads all guards with 1.38 blocks per game, which happens to place him 16th overall in the league, a hair behind Joakim Noah, Shaq, and Josh Smith. Oh, and he shoots near 50%, has brought his 3-point shooting to over 30%, and leads the league in scoring with nearly 30 points per game. Basically, anything you need this man to do, he not only could do it, he usually does.

Second, and equally as important, Miami, though mostly Dwayne Wade, plays big. Only three teams have at least one victory against each of the undisputed top four teams in the league (Cleveland, Lakers, Boston, and Orlando), Detroit, Orlando and Miami. The only lopsided point differential came against Orlando, in a 122-99 decision (oddly enough where Dwayne started his tear of the NBA with a 50 point game). Honestly the game was a lot closer than the final score depicted, despite Wade being the only scoring option for the Heat. How can you not win by at least 20 points when you go 51% from 3-point land, making 17 overall? That’s an extra 17 points right there.

Though I could wish that the NBA, just for this year, could have an NCAA tourney style playoff system, one and done, so that the Heat could Cinderella their way through the tournament, I’m happy enough knowing these facts. We need to finish strong, keep either the fourth or fifth seed. I won’t say that we’ll “handle” Atlanta, but we certainly could win that series. Past that would be Cleveland. Luckily for the Heat, they only match up badly against Orlando, who will need to go through Boston. Honestly, people are looking forward to the Boston-Cleveland series, but my eyes are gonna be glued to the Boston-Orlando series, a much tougher match to call since both have great interior presence, good defense, and tons of scoring options. Miami doesn’t exactly match up well with Cleveland, but we stand a much better chance of stealing a series from them. The Heat are 1-3 against Cleveland this year, but all of the games have been within reach. The first loss was a 93-86 late game letdown, where the Heat were outscored 35-19 in the fourth in order for Cleveland to make the comeback. The second loss was another late game comeback for Cleveland, this time outscoring us 31-18 in the fourth for a 107-100 win. The last loss was a 99-89 game, and Mo Williams really hurt us. Clearly depth was in issue those first two games, as they were both fourth quarter collapses, and in both games we went into the fourth quarter with a good lead, the last game was a plain and simple loss, where Mo really just had out number, and Cleveland played incredible defense.

If, by some miracle, we make it to the finals, and we happen to meet the Lakers, I’m totally calling the upset. In their two games this season, split, the total margin of victory was 5 points, two in Miami’s victory, three in LA’s. Seemingly out matched, Miami has played at the Lakers level in both meetings, and if a prayer is answered, meeting them in the Finals could possibly be the best thing for us. Yes, most of this is wishful thinking, but look at it honestly and without bias. Of all the teams heading into the playoffs, who has a better chance to upset the whole thing? Detroit has pretty much melted down, nobody in the West seems to want to be second best and challenge LA for the West title, and nobody else has a player of Dwayne Wade’s caliber besides Cleveland and LA. Of all the teams not in the top four, they have the best chance to crash the party.

Okay, argument rant out of the way, now for the more rational arguments for the East being at least equal with the West this year. First up, the most shot down argument, is the head to head record (unless of course the West held the head to head edge, then it’d be legit of course). This right now stands at 146-125 in favor of the East. I’ll touch on the arguments against this in a second, as they’re attached to my second argument. Just a quick bit of info, the East was 4-1 against the West last night, the only loss was the Bobcats to the Trail Blazers, pretty much balanced by the 76ers beating the Rockets.

So the argument against this is that a lot of these victories would be coming against the bottom of the West, and the East is still struggling against the top. I don’t have the new numbers to say this is no longer true, but how nice is it for the top of the West to face the bottom of the West more often than the East as a whole does? Which leads to my second argument, the fact that the West’s top 9 is stronger then everyone in the East but their top 3. I’ve had the pleasure of obsessing over the NBA this season, and have noticed a few things. One, the bottom of the West really sucks. Beyond that “Top 9” sits 16-38 Minnesota, a record that would sit them right above last place in the East, ahead of 9-36 Washington, but behind 18-28 Iniana, who is second to last in the East. It gets worse from there, dropping off into 4 teams in the West with 11 or fewer wins. This ties into fact two I’ve noticed, the elite of the West has been inconsistent at best, and, like I said, no use of injuries as an excuse as the East has had just as many, and it’s been really lucky for them that nobody beyond that top 9 has been remotely good enough to challenge even an injury ravaged team. San Antonio just joined L.A. Lakers as the second team in the west at 30 wins, so I’m upgrading this to 34 or more wins at this point in the season, which the East has three of, not much fun for the rest of the East mind you. The East also has 14 teams with 15 or more wins, the West only has 10.

The reason I initially decided to write this up was because a lot of ESPN writers expressed a desire I know neither I, nor any of my NBA loving friends, has any desire to see, a mass seeded playoff system, where only record is taken into account, which would clearly favor the West.  Early this season it would have done so much more, but the way it stands now, only Milwaukee would be on the outside looking in from the East. I also took a quick glance at a few records of the top 9 of each conference and things looks like this. The overall record for the top 9 East against Western conference teams as a whole stands at 101-66, top 9 West against all of the east is 98-64, so still an edge there. Now I’m not going to look at each individual head to head, as that would take far too much time (and you can if you’re really interested), but I did look into one stat I know contributes to how well a team plays, and that’s home court advantage….or rather, in this case, the lack thereof. This requires a look at not only the road  record, but just in general how many road games have been played by these 18 teams. First up, the records, for the East it stands at 107-100 (really dragged down by Milwaukee’s 9-19 record), and for the West 100-93 (slightly less dragged down by Utah’s 8-15 road record). An identical 7 games over the .500 mark, with the East having played 14 more road games than the West, and it has to be assumed a few of those were West coast games. Really that confirmed what I felt had happened the first half of the season, seemed like a good chunk of the East-West games were starting past 9pm EST.

The only thing most experts will admit is that the top of the East is way better than the top of the West, all I’m saying is look at the whole picture. With the East having a better overall record against the West, having played more road games, and more West coast games, also while facing much tougher competition night in and night out, with the only respite coming against the Wizards, and the dredges of the West, which they out West of course benefit from on almost a nightly basis. The gap between the East and West is closing fast, and might be already shut. Even with their recent stumbling against the East, the Orlando Magic still have had the magic touch against the West, and I feel confident in including them with the Cavaliers and the Celtics as the three teams from the East that can beat anyone from the West. I’d also say that Atlanta, Miami, Detroit, and Philly, with good matchups, and staying healthy, could beat anyone past the Lakers from the West, and could give the top of the East a fun for their money (as Atlanta did last year to the Celtics). Let’s be honest, Houston on down in the West, would struggle to have a winning record against anyone but the Wizards in the East (proving my point on that was the 21-22 76ers from the East beating said 28-18 Houston team by 2 tonight).

I’m also going to include my pre all-star break predictions just for fun. I see the East finishing thusly:

1. Boston
2. Cleveland
3. Orlando
4. Miami
5. Philadelphia
6. Atlanta
7. Detroit
8. New York

And in the West:

1. L.A. Lakers
2. San Antonio
3. Denver
4. New Orleans
5. Portland
6. Pheonix
7. Houston
8. Dallas

Whatever people may think of Shaq, him coupled with a healthy Dwayne Wade this year could have spelled title contention, he’s still that good, and we traded him straight up for Shawn Marion, mostly for contract reasons. Marion’s contract ends this year, and it looks like, from his production, neither the Heat nor Marion want to resign. So Pat Riley is doing the smartest thing, he’s getting equal value for Marion in a really good, if oft injured, center in Jermaine.

How is this a no lose situation? Well let’s look at the possible scenarios. First we’ll start with keeping Marion. If the Heat did this, they’d have to make the decision to resign, and Marion would never go for a one year deal, which would leave the Heat with nothing but cap space to show for the Marion-Shaq trade.

Now if we traded him, and hopefully Banks, for O’Neal this does several things, and all without violating one important rule of Riley’s. First the positives. O’Neal, though injured, is a great player, and even when moderately healthy should be good for 15-10, if not 20-10 when completely healthy. He also would bring the Heat instant size and stability at the center position. If he doesn’t pan out, at least we can get him healthy enough to package another trade, since his contract expires after next year, and someone might be able to use him. At that point it would make sense to just let his contract expire (you know the big signing of the summer of 2010). This all has that added bonus, one year contract, going in Pat Riley’s current rule of no contracts beyond 2010, basically getting a Shawn Marion type player, but at a position where we aren’t glutted with players already (notable Jones and Beasley can slide over to play that small forward position), who has an extra year on his contract for us to shop around and make decisions with. Seems like a great idea to me.

So, how would the Heat’s lineup change if we got a moderately healthy O’Neal? Well he would definitely be our starting center, for most games. I still like what coach Spolstra is doing. He’s playing a lineup to try and fit his opponent (just hasn’t had anyone big and consistent enough at center to battle against a lineup like what the Celtics show, ie HUGE). So against a big lineup we would have O’Neal at center, backed up by Magloire. I would have Haslem starting at the power forward, and slide Joel down as back up to him. Beasley would be my starting small forward, he’s a good enough scorer, and quick enough to handle most at that position, and his defense has been improving. I still see some lazy positioning under the basket, and sliding him to small forward would be beneficial since Haslem and O’Neal would be handling the brunt of the rebounding duties. Obviously James Jones, and Diawara would be backing him up as specialists, offense and defense respectively. Starting back court would be the same, as would the back ups. Wade backed up very well by Cook, and Chalmers and Quinn splitting guard duty.

For a small line-up I’d put a twist. I would push Beasley up to starting power forward, and have Haslem back up O’Neal at center. I would start Jones or Diawara at small forward. The one kink I like in the lineup is when we go really small, with a three guard lineup. For instant injection of energy, and scoring, a lineup of O’Neal at center, Beasley at power, Cook playing small, Wade at guard, and Chalmers at guard. O’Neal, Beasley, and Wade can all create their own opportunities, while Cook and Chalmers are really good spot up shooters (if Jones proves he can still shoot with good consistence pull him into the lineup as well if Beasley or Cook aren’t doing hot that night). It would basically be a nigh unstoppable offense since small lineups would struggle to cover three guys who can break a defense down in different ways, and still get to open shooters, and big lineups would only work by stuffing up the center and praying the shooters miss.

In all, there’s a lot to be excited about in this trade. Like I said, at worst, O’Neal’s contract ends next summer, just in time for us to sign LeBron (wishful thinking huh). I for one hope we hear in the coming weeks that O’Neal is indeed recovering well, and the Heat’s medical staff is one of the most well respected in the league for helping rehabilitate injured players back to tip top form. Once that news comes in, I will be backing Riley’s decision to pull the trigger on this deal no matter what O’Neal contributes to the Heat.

Beasley Passes First Test

“Lets win us another championship,” were Beasley’s final words at his first press conference at the American Airlines Arena. Let’s hope this guy is as clairvoyant as Shaq! — On and Off the Court with the Miami Heat

Olympic Dreams

Short and sweet article about how if Dwayne Wade didn’t make the United States Olympic Team, the whole basketball universe may have come to a screeching end! — The Heat Chamber

Miami Heat Draft Recap: The Ghost of Harold Miner Has Been Exorcised

Great article by Chris Joseph that will tell you everything you need to know about the Miami Heat’s draft fortunes as well as tell you who has the best rack; and no, it isn’t Stan Van Gundy… — Riptide 2.0

Free Agent Market Could Help Heat

A look at who is available in the free agency market this summer. Not much if you ask me, but I am not GM and certainly no Pat Riley. — MiamiHeatwave.com

Open Letter to Pat Riley

This open letter to Pat Riley may be what we have to thank for him drafting Michael Beasley. Seriously, it was very convincing; and funny. — Riptide 2.0

Here’s how it happens, you get a brilliant guy in the Lottery, you build around him and hope for a championship in 5 years or so. You become a good team, make money, establish a “dynasty.” Said player is traded; is over the hill; retires gloriously (okay only Jordan fits this one). You get shanked in the Lottery as so many teams do, you draft a bust and you’re back in the dumps. The thing is, creating parity in the NBA is impossible, at least with the Lottery Draft. You would think being the worst team in the NBA would warrant you getting rewarded with at least one decent player that could change your fortunes in a couple of years, but that’s not the case. All that you’re guaranteed is disappointment.

So back to the original point, the NBA has major swings, and they usually involve entire conferences cause that’s all people see really. East versus West. Lately the argument has been that the East simply can’t compare or compete with the West, but I disagree.

Even if the Spurs were still hitting on all cylinders, the West lacks parity. In the long run the West will never really able to deliver in the playoffs. They all enjoy brilliant seasons, mostly due to having the absolute worst teams in the league consistently. To secure the worst record in the league all the Heat had to do was deal without Wade for the beginning of the season, lose Shaq, lose Williams, basically only have their intended starting line up on the floor less than 10 games the entire season, trade Shaq, lose Shawn Marion and have Wade rest his injured self the end of the season. All this and we still only beat out Seattle and Memphis by 5 and 7 game respectively, and the Knicks only joined the bottom ranks because…well they’re the Knicks.

The fact is the West’s schedules constantly pick up these butterballs in the Western Conference. The East usually doesn’t win the East-West match-ups, which does put a dent in my defense, but the East, defensively, is almost constantly put to the test, and does well to match up. The Western conference has breaks, the “mediocrity” cough cough parity of the Eastern Conference forces it to play constantly through the year for wins. Statistically, the average margin of victory is higher in the West, mostly because they play horrible defense throughout so it’s really a crap shoot on who wins thus larger margins, and also having the worst teams to beat down by 20 points is a plus.

Fact is, since the 5 years of dominance by the West, the Pistons Easily handled the Lakers 4-1, then San Antonio was pushed to 7 against the same Pistons, and could have easily faced a much stronger Miami team if Shaq didn’t have the deep thigh bruise that slowed him down so much. The Heat then put the defensive clamps on Dirk and the pathetic Mavericks winning 4-2. How the Cavs made the finals I don’t know, but I blame the Heat for the 4-0 sweep, and now of course the 4-2 series victory by the Celtics, and we all know it wasn’t even that close. It’s simple; the West is a good regular season conference. They’re all built to win lots of games, probably more excitingly for the good of the NBA, but not one of them is built for a tough 7 game series against one opponent, with the exception of the Spurs, and they’re getting old.

In fact, I’m so confident of this, that I will guarantee an East victory next year unless I see some major moves out West because frankly, even with Bynum the Lakers would have still gotten a beating, and they were the best the West could show, and even had a brilliant defensive scheme against Rondo to disrupt the Celtics for the first half of two of the games. The parity of the East is what sets it apart. Next year looks to be even more tight for the East. Contenders for a playoff spot include:  Boston, Detroit, Cleavland, Orlando, Washington, Philly, Toronto, Atlanta, Chicago, Miami, and even the Knicks (I expect a rather quick turnaround there, and it is, after all, the wide open East). In the West there are the same eight playoff spots and usually only 8 contenders, and this last year with Pheonix, Dallas, Denver, and Golden State that bottom was really weak.

Now let me just finish with this, I do think most of the better talent is in the West, and thank god the Celtics stole Ray and Kevin to bring a bit more balance on that side of it, but talent just hasn’t seemed to be enough for the West, and in the NBA that’s really disturbing considering it’s usually 1 guy who can make the difference. I think you can only point to the season the Eastern Conference teams are forced to go through with their “mediocrity” as the reason they have recently been keeping up with the West, and if they win again next year, dominance can be brought into the discussion. I promise though, I’ll be back here next year to either crown myself or eat my words; I never shirk from this sort of thing so by all means hold me accountable.

That said, I still think all the hype for this Derrick Rose is…well it’s quite frankly stupid. Here’s a guy who averaged about 15 points and 5 assists per game in the regular season, and then explodes for 21 and 6 on the biggest stage. Yeah, I’m being facetious. He’s a really good point guard, I grant you that, and those are few and far between. It takes more than freakish athleticism to make a great point guard, you actually have to rely on your brain more than your ability to split a double team. He was a blip on the radar before the tourney, and in my mind he should stay that way. There are two or three other guards below Rose in all the mock drafts that have been far more consistent than he has.

It doesn’t matter though because the Bulls will be taking their hometown boy. Just the Chicago factor alone does give this pick more credibility; could you imagine Dwayne Wade in his hometown, but the fact remains that I’m predicting right now, he’ll be no CP3, or even a Derron Williams.

The number two pick is farrrr more complicated. I should add a few more R’s there, maybe a couple of A’s as well. What started as a surefire one-two draft has been turned into a circus by the Miami Heat. I’m not gonna cry though. Like I said, I just have this feeling that Beasley could be shouldering too much and could end up burning out his first season. It happens, and it hasn’t happened in a while in the NBA, with all the guys who had high expectations exceeding them like LeBron and Wade, and all the other drafts being already determined to be busts, it’s high time the NBA had a spectacular draft bust.

Hopefully it won’t happen to the Heat. You should really read this article to get a full picture of what the Heat have got on their plate, but I can give you the short version here. There are two well proven talents currently sitting in the NBA that are ripe for the Heat’s picking over the next few seasons. First the least likely option. A man we all know that Riley has been eying for years is within his grasp, a straight trade of picks and players could finally land Riles Elton Brand. The Clippers have the 7th pick, and if things go according to plan the Heat could still see a decent point guard in Jerryd Bayless.

To me, this scenario really makes no sense for the Heat. The only way I could see this one happening is if the Clippers took on another player like Marc Blount to free up cap space for the Heat. Barring that, there just isn’t enough in this to justify trading away a Michael Beasley or OJ Mayo pick. Plus Elton Brand has had some recent injury worries which lessens the value even more.

The one I hope the Heat pull the trigger on is the scenario I hear coming out of the Griz camps. After their ahem trade with the Lakers the Griz are sorely lacking some big men. Trading up from the 5 to the 2 spot to pick up Beasley, draft bust prediction by me though he may be, makes the most sense for them. The deal would have the Heat getting Mike Miller as well as a point guard of our choice (I’m crossing my fingers for Mike Conley) which would really leave us wide open at the #5 spot in the draft. Plus, need I remind Heat fans where we drafted Wade at, perhaps a bit of magic lightning striking twice could be in store for us. Sitting there we could feasibly hope for the likes of Brook Lopez, Mayo, Kevin Love, Jerryd or several other mixtures of bigs and smalls.

Things get even more exciting when considering what freeing up some cap space could do for us. Carlos Boozer, a Miami resident, has an expiring contract next year with Utah, and who wouldn’t want to go from the hellacious West to the defense happy East?

Here’s a for instance for ya:

Mike Conley, who averaged 9.4 points and 4.2 assists playing 26 minutes a game in his rookie year for the Grizzlies, running the point for the Heat. A note, in his last month of ball, where he got consistent minutes and had some experience, he averaged 14.3 points, 4.3 assists, shot 48% from the field and nearly 45% from 3 point land, and throw in 4 ribs for good measure.

Sitting pretty, and hopefully healthy, Dwayne Wade at shooting guard, helping young Conley in late games by sharing the distribution and ball handling role, and remember, if Conley’s one month of a consistent role on the floor is any indication, he’ll provide wade with a great target to distribute to.

I would love to keep Shawn Marion at the small forward position. Having your smallest big average 10+ rebounds per game is a huge plus. More than that though Marion runs the floor well, is always a decent target, can spread the floor with his shot and is a pretty good defender.

Starting in 2009 you can feasibly see Udonis Haslem, as sad as I am to say this, replaced by Carlos Boozer. You now have a legitimate big three to rival Boston, but this one could be even better. Boozer is arguably just as good defensively as KG, and doesn’t lack for intensity, especially on the boards. He’s also a brilliant post scorer and has great strength. With Marion and Boozer running around gobbling up rebounds, and Wade and Conley shooting one on one jumpers, as you’d have to respect both Boozer and Marion wherever they are on the floor, in 2 years time the Heat could be in contention for a title once again.

Finally, the center position. Since I don’t think the Heat can find any way to contend for a championship this year under any scenario, I think it’d be a good time to draft a true center. Nothing spectacular, just a big body to help clear things out in the middle for Boozer and Wade, and can defend reasonably well. With Wade, Boozer, and Marion all able to open up for 20+ a night (if you took their averages at face value you could be looking at 60+ points a night out of the Miami’s version of the big three, and Conley looks to be getting along as a shooter as well), we wouldn’t really be looking to have much scoring out of the center position. Perfect scenario would see Brook Lopez falling into our laps at the #5 pick (not likely), but I also liked the looks of Roy Hibbert. I’d love to see more rebounding potential out of him, and he’s a bit soft looking, but boy can that man block. Whoever we get, I’d love to see ‘Zo stay with the Heat in some capacity (wouldn’t it be brilliant if he became our center’s coach), to help teach the young man about NBA intensity from a guy who anybody would listen to.

Now, sit back and chew on that for a bit. Just think about it for a moment, in two years time this could be the Miami Heat starting lineup. The Heat’s biggest problem, if this falls through, would be finding good backup point guards and centers. We lack so much depth there it’s ridiculous, which is ironic as we have four of each spot filled up. Unless Earl Barron develops more, and quickly, we can’t expect much out of Joel Anthony and Blount (whom we should be looking to get rid of as soon as is humanly possible), and even if he did come back, ‘Zo could only feasibly provide 20 minutes a night tops, probably more like 15 energy packed minutes though.

First though, the trigger must be pulled on the Grizzlies deal (and Boozer must want a more permanent home in Miami, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves). The good news is, I really think the Heat will do this. Beasley just isn’t a LeBron James, and the Heat can and will do better. So expect Miami to be picking at #5 sitting with a new point guard and Mike Miller.

The Bulls problem has been, and always will be, their offense. It’s anemia is only just now being displayed but the numbers have been there for quite some time. Look at how this team is built. The Baby Bulls, to a T, are all jump shooters. Deng is a brilliant player, and he’ll be a great one someday, but he cannot create. Ben Gordon and Kirk Henrich both are quick ball handlers and can get open shots sometimes, but are terrible on the inside and their passing skills are sub par at best. Your point guard should not average a paltry 5.5 assists a game.

Their inside game and post presence is even worse. Deng seems to have regressed this year and is pulling up far too quickly, settling for jumpers and turnarounds. He could easily back down or dribble his way to the interior of the defense, but seems to have chose this year to stay on the fringes. We all know that relying on Wallace for interior offense is a moot venture. So what do the Bulls have to go inside and allow their jump shooting guards some room to take shots? You’re really going to rely on Smith, Noah, and Thomas to get your post presence established?

This is the reason the Bulls would never ever, with this lineup, compete for a title. They swept the Heat last season (and gave them trouble the year before) because Miami is an admittedly slow team on defense, though great at defending the basket. Teams like the Bulls and the Suns expose this weakness by making the myriad of jump shots they take. The Bulls, though, don’t have an Amare Stoudemire, so they rely exclusively on their jump shooting, and they have no Nash, so they rely on self creating shots and passing around the horn. Past the Heat though, any mediocre defense would supplant the Bulls and their feisty defense, scoring just enough to push them aside.

Usually in the regular season the Bulls are able to post a decent record because of pure luck. The numbers were on their side shooting from the outside that much that they’re bound to make a few, win some games and lose others. They’re able to win more because of their defense. Come play off time, their flaws are exposed. Playing 7 games in about a 1 and a half to 2 week period against one opponent, a playoff team will sweep them aside fairly quickly, the numbers finally catching up with them.

The only solution would have been the block buster trade that they were rumored to be in the works with, and the one they should have pulled the trigger on. You schlump off Luol Deng and a few others to pick up Kobe and they’re an instant play off contender. He’s one of the best one on one defenders in the league and would fit in nicely with Scott’s style of play. His style of offense would also instantly raise the Baby Bulls to stardom. Scoring 25+ a night and the ability to create and make everyone around him better? Just set up everyone on the outside, have him drive and dish or shoot and there’s your offense. This team plays far better defense than the Lakers and has just as many offensive role players.

They didn’t pull the trigger though. I suspect the numbers will balance out eventually and the Baby Bulls will be able to limp their way into an Eastern Conference playoff spot, but, unless they face the Heat, don’t expect their stay to be long.

The Sentence we were Waiting for

Know why ”15 Strong” was an inspirational concept rather than some cheesy catch phrase for the 2006 champion Heat?
Because the idea came from Pat Riley.

Know why Shaquille O’Neal has remained in good shape for his first three years with the Heat despite his constant reminders that he plays better when bigger?
Because the request came from Pat Riley.

This is what Israel Gutierrez of the Miami Herald had to say about the Heat’s tireless leader. This is what the man brings to the Miami Heat. Pat Riley is, what I like to call, team glue. With him on your roster, you can become a contender. Why? Because he believes. And when he believes, you believe

And on Monday, August 13th, he uttered the words that we Heat fans were sitting on the edge of our seats, waiting for; “I have decided that I’m going to coach another three years; the term of my contract.” Riley said that this wasn’t some sort of game he was playing by delaying his decision. His son was moving out, his daughter was off to college, and he just wanted time to reflect on his decision. Thankfully, in an off season of disappointment, this is a major bright spot.

And Speaking of Believing…

Pat Riley has the utmost confidence in the team he has assembled; even if pundits like me aren’t quite fully convinced. I have been writing that I am quite worried about this upcoming season; I am worried that Wade will not perform, because of injury. I am worried that if anything, we got a little older and more mediocre this off season. Above all, I am worried that we haven’t added the athleticism that we need to compete in this league.

Sure, I am generally a pessimist, yet this is still pretty bad. But with all of my worrying, now that Riley is solidly at the helm, I have had my confidence restored. Riley has faith in this team and now so do I. The acquisitions and makeup of the team hereto far haven’t been spectacular, but they are defensible. J-Will may have a solid, injury free season. Wade may be better than ever. Shaq still dominates in the paint, whether people are flopping around him or not. And these new back court players may very well provide the stability that the team needed at that position. I now believe all of these things.

And besides, who said that the off season is over?…